


Purgatorio

by LadyTuesday



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Sex, Dante's Divine Comedy, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, M/M, Purgatory, Slash, brief mentions of Castiel(Emmanuel)/Daphne, eventual destiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:58:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTuesday/pseuds/LadyTuesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The "missing" scenes that weave together the Purgatory flashbacks and explore the seismic change in the Dean/Cas relationship that grew from their time in Purgatory, interpreted through the terraces of Purgatory from Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy: The Division of Sinners (prologue), The Proud, The Envious, The Wrathful, The Slothful, The Covetous, The Gluttonous, The Lustful, and Earthly Paradise (epilogue). Told from the point of view of Dean, Castiel, and Benny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - The Division of the Sinners

**Author's Note:**

> A/N – This is my first full-length, non-one-shot fic in the SPN world … hurray! This work was written for the Dean/Cas Big Bang (DCBB) on livejournal. I highly recommend that you putter over to their page to check out other amazing stories from the DCBB. :) Also, if you like what you see here, please go read and review (wink wink, nudge nudge) my one-shots. I'll try to keep the A/N short, but there are a few things you should know about this fic:
> 
> \--- All pre-chapter/section quotes are from "Purgatorio", the second portion of the epic poem The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. In case you're interested (and/or are a huge nerd like me), it's the Mandelbaum translation. Link is in my profile.
> 
> \--- The story is basically meant to be the "missing" scenes in between the Purgatory flashbacks (with the obvious literary parallels). As such, I don't include much of the ACTUAL Purgatory flashbacks simply because … well … you've seen it already. My interest is in the subtext –IMHO, there's a huge change in dynamic between Dean and Cas during/after Purgatory – and what happened "off screen". And remember, you can't spell "subtext" without "butt sex". Which brings me to my next point:
> 
> \--- This is technically a Destiel fic, but it's a slower burn; you won't see the physicality until later in the fic. That being said, it's rated M/Explicit for a reason. There will be harsh language and violence throughout, and if you don't like slash, be forewarned: there's some decently hard-core smut in the last couple of chapters.
> 
> \--- There are a few things that will occur here that are not exactly canon: a) Castiel's handprint on Dean's shoulder – it disappears after 5.22 Swan Song, but I have reintroduced it for my own nefarious purposes; b) Castiel's "angel mojo" in Purgatory – he does have some mojo, as he banishes at least one creature, but he's also seen fighting hand-to-hand; since his mojo is severely weakened when he returns to Earth, I have made my own inferences. Hopefully neither of these will "stick in your craw," as Benny would say.
> 
> \--- This fic is complete in 9 chapters: a prologue, one chapter for each of the seven terraces of Purgatory as paralleled from Dante, and an epilogue. I will update once a week on Supernatural Tuesdays until complete. Since the prologue isn't that long, I won't keep you in suspense for an entire week and will post chapter one tomorrow. :)
> 
> Also, an amazing facet of the DCBB is that you get artists who volunteer to illustrate your work! I'm flattered and humbled that the wonderful and talented Jackie ([thesoufflegirl](http://thesoufflegirl.livejournal.com/) on lj, [consultingsoufflegirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingsoufflegirl/pseuds/consultingsoufflegirl) here on AO3, and [crowleybby](http://crowleybby.tumblr.com) on tumblr) volunteered to do the art for this story. Art will be included here, but please also visit her page(s) and show your appreciation for her work because I'm so grateful that she volunteered to share her talent with me!
> 
> Yup. That's what passes as "keeping it short" from me. Please remember: reviews are love.
> 
> Best,  
> Lady Tuesday

_**The Division of the Sinners: The Excommunicate** _

__

As he stopped in the elongated shadow of a towering tree to take his ease for a moment, Castiel couldn't help but think that if the whole situation wasn't so rife with personal tragedy, he might find it amusingly absurd: an angel of the Lord charged with silently watching humanity chosen to raise a man from Hell ends up being swept into Purgatory after decimating both Heaven and Earth. Before any of this had begun, before this battered vessel had housed him, Castiel had believed that merely the suggestion of doubt was blasphemous enough to risk a fall. And yet, here he was, counting his initial rebellion from the Host's planned apocalypse as the _least_ severe of his transgressions. Perhaps it wasn't "funny", exactly, but it certainly was absurd. Almost farcical.

He swiped his filthy hands against his even filthier clothes, long since having let go of the disdain for the thick layer of grime that had coated him since he arrived here. Dirt and blood and a sticky film of black ooze splotched across Castiel's bedraggled coat and hospital scrubs, a patchwork story of the creatures who had died by his hands since touching down in this wretched place. Although he technically didn't need to sleep, the few quiet hours that he could steal while the night gloom hung in the sky gave him some respite. He dreaded those minutes, though, knowing that the absence of combat would leave him receptive to the persistent hum of Dean's voice in the back of his head.

A most unwelcome throb of anguish wrenched at his heart as Castiel heard it in the back of his mind: an unrelenting repetition of his name coupled with progressively more fervent promises of rescue and support, night after night. Even after all of the faults and failings Dean had been subjected to on the part of his angelic friend – even after the angel had abandoned him in a pitch black world of fiends – the hunter's prayers to Castiel weren't the demands for help and answers that the angel expected, that the prayers should have been. They were appeals for his whereabouts and frantic promises that the hunter would save him. Save him. As if Dean owed him redemption. As if he could even be redeemed. Castiel clenched his eyes shut against the drone of Dean's prayers but it did no good.

During daylight, under the alternating strains of unyielding combat and fevered flight from his pursuers, Castiel could block out the presence of Dean's mind within his, the prayers that threaded through his consciousness. The tiny shard of his Grace that resided within his mark on Dean's shoulder picked the man out to Castiel's awareness, like a silver thread within a blanket of midnight, far away in the reaches of the immeasurable void that was Purgatory. The conscious sensation of Dean's connection to his Grace was what allowed the man to call him so easily as well as what allowed Castiel to travel to him with such precision when Dean was in need. These flashes of rest and silence when the angel hid within the dismal bramble of undergrowth made the connection seem like a curse, however, as the stillness in his mind made it nearly impossible to shut his friend out. The scratchy recitations of Dean's pleas agonized him, tearing at him as he clutched at his vessel's gritty hair. The few times that the prayers had given way to weeping, Castiel had all but clawed out his eyes in misery. He couldn't imagine a worse Hell for himself than knowing that Dean was in need, in peril, in _pain_ , and he could do nothing to prevent it or even assuage it.

But he deserved this hell. Not just because of what he'd done on Earth, what he'd done in Heaven, but because of what he'd done to Dean. Castiel had brought every single pinprick of suffering upon himself with his rashness, his arrogance, his ruthless, pitiless cruelty and then his horrid cowardice. As Dean wore Castiel's rough name smooth against his tongue with his nightly prayers, the angel reminded himself of every instant of hurt that he'd caused his friend – his first actual friend and the man who taught him the true meanings of loyalty and family, of _feelings_ in and of themselves – if only to grind into his borrowed bones the penance owed. Hundreds of angels dead in his wake, countless humans slaughtered at his heels … Castiel remembered every face, every feather, every spatter of blood as Dean Winchester invoked his name and declaimed endlessly of his loyalty to his angel friend, his perseverance in the fight to find him, save him. This was the forfeit, the price of Castiel's fall. It was steep, but he would shoulder what was due even if it destroyed him. Not just because he owed it to Heaven or Earth, but because the man that prayed to him out there in the dark deserved an angel that justified his relentless devotion.

The only glimmer of hope that Castiel allowed himself was the ardent faith that in sacrificing himself, he could protect Dean. Dean's name was on Castiel's lips as he rose from behind the bushes, squaring his shoulders to take on the growling creature that had come upon him in the dark. If keeping himself away from Dean gave his friend even the tiniest sliver of a chance to evade these monsters and perhaps even death itself, then he would unreservedly draw to his chest every abomination that Purgatory could spew forth and let the beasts feed on him for as long as it took to save Dean Winchester.

 

**_The Division of the Sinners: The Late Repentant_ **

 

Dean certainly didn't miss the complete absurdity of the situation. Hell, if it had been any other poor sap's shitty excuse for reality that he was staring down the barrel of, he might have even found it kind of funny. A fucked up, Tarantino movie sort of funny. A man who had been to both Heaven _and_ Hell on his damn knees in freaking _Purgatory_ praying his heart out to an ex-soldier, ex-God-substitute, possibly-still-batshit-crazy renegade angel … well, even Dean Winchester would find that shit hilarious if he weren't living it. And even though Dean usually thought that praying was about as useful as tits on a turtle, it was the image of Cas out there somewhere, terrified and crazy and alone, that kept Dean on his knees every night with his forehead pressed against his trembling hands as he whispered into the unquiet dark in a voice made hoarse by exertion and withdrawal.

That particular part of this crap storm actually made his lips quirk up just a bit in self-depreciating humor as he broke his litany of prayer to shake out the tremors in his hands. During the day, constant combat, fear, and adrenaline kept his body running but when the endless nights descended with no warning, darkness slamming down on them like a curtain of nothingness, his limbs started to shake, his stomach heaved, and his head screamed. It seemed a weirdly appropriate demise for someone like Dean: he was just fine with the infinite hack-and-slash killing sprees that were the make-up of Purgatory, but when that was wiped away his whole body buckled for lack of a good stiff drink. If it wasn't him dealing with this shit-heap of a situation, he definitely would have found it funny.

Dean licked his cracking lips and reapplied himself to his pleas in the dark.

"Cas," Dean rasped out, "Cas, buddy, I know you can hear me. I just want you to know that I'm coming for you. I'm going to find you, man, I promise. I'm not going to leave you alone, Cas…"

His voice cracked for a moment, thinking of Cas on his own, frantically fighting off the hordes of monsters that Dean could just barely handle himself. With a shock of cold, slick terror, he imagined Castiel lying on the ground, bleeding out. Or, worse yet, the angel scrambling, mauled and broken, away from a creature that laughed as his blood dripped from its jaws. Screaming for help. Screaming for Dean. A noisy sob tore itself from Dean's throat before he capped it; who the hell knew what was out there in the dark, and he couldn't afford to cry like a bitch and bring on anything that would think him easy meat.

Sliding down to lay at the foot of the tree where he'd been praying, Dean removed his jacket and pulled it over himself like a blanket, a parody of sleep. After a few long moments of forcibly measured breaths, Dean continued whispering his vow to Castiel, hoping with every atom of his being that the angel could hear him.

"Cas," he started again.

When his mind flashed again to increasingly gory versions of Cas's death or savaging at the hands of the things that stalked out there in the dark, Dean just repeated his name over and over again, letting the soothing sounds of the angel's name on his tongue lull him into the oblivion of sleep.

 


	2. The First Terrace - The Proud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Calm down; take a breath,” Dean said, if for no other reason than prove he could remember other words. Once the vampire had shaken his hair out of his face and pulled back his fangs, Dean asked, “Where’s the angel?”
> 
> To Dean’s surprise, the creature gave him a tiny smile, his eyes lighting with mischief and recognition. “You’re him,” he said smoothly, hungrily. “The _human_.” 
> 
> A bit shaken – had he gained a reputation amongst the monsters in his search for Cas? – Dean slammed him against the bark again and spat out, “Where’s the angel?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you've read this before, you've probably noticed that it's been an insanely long time since I updated. I won't go into the many, varied reasons and RL things that have kept me away - from this fic in specific but from writing fic in general - but I am back. If you've read this before and have stuck with me, I can't thank you enough.
> 
> If you haven't read this before, understand two things:  
> 1\. This fic will parallel Dean and Cas's journey through Purgatory to the seven terraces of Purgatory and two steps outside Purgatory (both before - the Prologue - and after - the epilogue) from Dante's Divine Comedy epic poem, specifically _Purgatorio_. The work is already complete, so it will be posted weekly and complete in nine chapters (including the epilogue).
> 
> 2\. This was written before season nine occurred at all. As such, there may be tiny details here and there that are no longer canon; I have reread a lot and I don't think there's anything glaring, but if there is, please 1) forgive me, and 2) don't hesitate to say so in the comments. I welcome concrit (as long as it's constructive and not mean-spirited) and will be happy to reexamine. I don't think that there's anything that would derail the trajectory of the fic.
> 
> Thank you again for reading. I hope you enjoy.
> 
> ~ * Lady Tuesday * ~

**Chapter One – The First Terrace: The Proud**

_Just as Your angels, as they sing Hosanna,  
Offer their wills to You as sacrifice,  
so may men offer their wills to You._  
~ Canto XI, lines 10-12

When the blur of battle settled, a macabre detritus of severed body parts and moaning creatures ringed the angel who stood at the center of the clearing, his face devoid of expression but his chest heaving with rapid breaths. His time here in Purgatory – a month? two? Even with his abilities, it was hard to gauge - had been spent in an inexorable whirl of bloodshed and steeply climbing body count. Castiel couldn’t be certain that killing any of these things even did any good other than to keep himself alive, if he could even be said to be living in this place. Would slaying the never-ending horde of beasts that came for him keep Dean any safer? He couldn’t possibly know, though he tried to tell himself that every monster he had slain lessened the number out there to attack the hunter. But did it really? Did they simply respawn endlessly in perpetuity, forever doomed to snarl and hunt and die and regenerate the next day to repeat the pattern ad infinitum? Was this their Hell? Or, because it was an angel’s Hell, was it a monster’s heaven, this cycle of death and life and terror and warfare?

Castiel swiped a dirty hand across his face to rid it of sweat and debris, though he couldn't say whether it actually did any good. Reminding himself that he needed to be more vigilant about allowing his vessel to rest, Castiel wended his way out from the trail of carnage to squat at the base of one of the larger looking trees. His Grace weakened every day. He supposed that he shouldn't have been surprised by this; it was neither the first time he’d been cut off from Heaven, nor the most justifiable reason. To be fair, he couldn't be certain whether the waning of his angelic “mojo” was due to a blatant severing by Heaven or simply his presence in this sphere, but the result was the same so it hardly mattered. Musing, he thought perhaps it was lack of proximity rather than a decided action by his brethren, as they’d had plenty of time to revenge themselves for the angelic slaughter while he convalesced in the mental hospital or had been in flight with Meg. So more likely that the dwindling Grace was a result of Purgatory itself. An unpleasant sapping of energy accompanied every attempt to banish a creature, so Castiel had been forced to rely on his hand-to-hand training and, he admitted to himself with a tiny half-smile, some of the dirtier tricks he’d learned from the Winchesters over the last few years. 

Reflection on his time with the Winchesters and all that had passed between them had Castiel dropping to the leaf-covered ground beneath the tree instead of merely just hovering to gather himself. He leaned his head back against the rough bark and let his eyes drop shut. A few deep breaths filled his chest before he examined that method of self-examination, the cataloging of his physical well-being. Apparently, acquiring sneaky brawling tactics and an appreciation for unsavory diner food were not the only things the angel had absorbed in his time with his human charges: he’d begun to think of this body, this vessel, as his own, as _himself_ , even in the solitude of his thoughts. When had this temporal collection of cells become a flesh manifestation of his being instead of the transportation ewer that his training and very nature told him that it was? That it _should_ be. But it wasn’t anymore. The closer he’d gotten to the Winchesters – the more he hunted with them, commiserated with them, lived with them, _felt_ with them – the more he felt his essence adhere to this flesh and the less he felt the presence of Jimmy Novak’s soul back in the dark recesses of his mind. While his first instinct was to clutch at the draining Grace that made him an angel, a darker, guiltier part of him reveled in feeling so … human.

It was all Dean, really. When it came right down to it, the flesh he inhabited felt like a body instead of a temporary vehicle because of Dean. The hunter had always treated him as the celestial being he was but at the same time as something apart from the rest of his kin. The attitude was contagious, it seemed. More than that, Dean had introduced Castiel – often forcefully – to sensations and actions and feelings that he doubted many other angels had ever experienced. The elder Winchester’s own humanity invaded his being, weaving intoxicating, seductive tendrils into his essence until he could hardly separate the writhing strands of emotion and experience from his ethereal spirit. He hardly wanted to prize the two apart anymore; the very definition of what “Castiel” had come to mean was underwritten by Dean Winchester’s hand.

So he fought the brutes that growled in the dark because he owed it to Dean. He owed it to Dean to repay his faith and loyalty with protection. Salvation. He meant to save Dean, with his own mortality if necessary. He would thrust his dying breath from himself like a spear if that was what was needed to ensure that Dean survived.   
Because Dean’s survival meant everything to him and he had nothing but that left to lose, the angel did something he hadn’t done in quite some time: Castiel, fallen so far from Grace, turned his face to the sky and prayed to his Father.

“Please,” was all he could manage aloud, “please ….”

So he simply clasped his hands together, dropped his haggard face with its scraggly growth of hair into his upturned palms, and thought of Dean. If anything of prayer still reached his Father, still pricked at his inscrutable heart at all, Castiel couldn’t afford to be too proud to bend his head in supplication. He prayed fervently to his Father to hear him, to guide him to whatever end would allow his first, best friend to leave this place unscathed.

A hitch in Castiel’s breath had him furrowing his brow in confusion. Perhaps he had been more remiss in resting than he’d thought, as he detachedly noticed that his eyes were watering and the breaths leaving his chest quavered. The more he rested and prayed for his friend, however, the more he found himself succumbing to shuddering gulps of air, trembling limbs, and streaming eyes. 

Perhaps Dean had taught Castiel more human traits than he had believed. The angel had learned to weep.

*****

_Give unto us this day the daily manna  
without which he who labors most to move  
ahead through this harsh wilderness falls back. _  
~ Canto XI, lines 13-15

“Where’s the angel?” 

The words were as much a weapon to him as the knife in his hand, jammed underneath the nose of yet another monster. 

“Where?!” the hunter shouted at the face that merely sneered back at him.

This was getting him nowhere. He’d been getting nowhere for nearly two months now. As good a tracker as Dean was, trying to stalk a supernatural being in a land full of supernatural beings was like trying to follow a bread crumb trail in a world-sized bakery. Every potential trail turned out to be just another piece of another trail or a trail to the wrong thing. 

The hunter repeated his threat in a hoarse voice, giving the monster one more chance to help him before his fate locked in. “Where’s the angel?” The words seemed to be the only ones that made sense to him anymore.

The shifter he currently had pinned to the tree simply snarled and grinned at him, refusing even to overtly refuse to help. Dean’s patience had worn thin enough not to care that the creature hadn’t gotten a chance to lie to him. He swung back his arm and slashed off the mutt’s head, barely waiting for the sickening crunch-squish of the skull hitting the dead leaves at his feet before swiping the blade across the creature’s muddy jacket and moving on.

Dean had started to think that maybe the reason why he couldn’t find Cas might be that the angel didn’t want to be found. He couldn’t think why his friend would be evading his help, especially with Dean praying to him every night, but if Cas was still crazy, who knew what was going through the angel’s head? 

Or maybe Dean had just gotten sloppy. He hadn’t slept in days now, so all of his senses seemed muted and his muscles had begun to scream with soreness after even the most minor fights. The hunter had learned very quickly in those first panic-filled days that letting himself sleep at night made him ten times as vulnerable. Most of these creatures had senses keening than any animal on Earth and at first, he’d assumed that meant that moving at night would only put him at a disadvantage. What he discovered, however, was that a damn vampire could sneak up on him a fuck lot faster when it was cloaked in darkness; Dean had nearly lost a freaking leg learning _that_ lesson. So when he did manage to find no sign of creatures stalking him during the day, he’d shinnied up the tallest tree he could find, tied himself to a sturdy branch, and allowed himself to cat nap. If they were going to come after him while he was vulnerable, he’d make it as hard for the fuckers as he could. 

But the more time went by with no sign of Cas and no luck getting the piggies under his knife to squeal, the more desperate Dean got. He was chasing his tail and he knew it. He almost thought he could have handled Purgatory’s constant fighting and fucking running if he’d had his friend here with him, but he had gotten to the point where the only thing he could focus on was find the angel, find the angel, find the angel. And he knew that made him meat to the monsters in the trees that could sniff him out like a rat. 

Dean looked wistfully up at the branches of an oak that toward above his head. Damn, he was tired. He wanted nothing more than to hoist himself up, find a good branch, and zonk the fuck out for at least a day and a half. But his limbs were already watery with fatigue; if he somehow managed to get the strength to get up high enough, he knew he’d either fumble a knot and fall or he’d never be able to have the strength to get back down if something went wrong. And night was coming within the next couple of hours – he’d begun to be able to feel the snap of cold in the air right before the dark would descend – so he needed every ounce of strength just to be able to keep walking and fighting and demanding news of his friend. So he just sighed and kept moving through the gloomy trees.

He hadn’t been moving for even half an hour when the hairs on the back of his neck started to prickle. Fatigue or not, Dean’s hunter instincts set in and every muscle froze as he stretched out with his senses to try to find the source of danger. A dry limb crackled to his left and Dean’s head whipped around. Moving on nearly soundless feet, adrenaline coursing through him like a drug, Dean picked carefully over the dry ground until he found himself staring at his stalker’s back. The creature’s body stiffened as he lifted his head to scent the breeze.

_Vampire,_ Dean thought with a wry half-smile. _Can smell the blood on me._ His fingers tightened around the hilt of his knife.

In a whir of motion, the vampire spun to face Dean, snarling as they tussled. Dean managed to pin the bloodsucker against a tree, his arm braced across the taller man’s chest. The vamp snarled and writhed against Dean’s grip, but he managed to keep the thing braced against the tree trunk. Maybe the hunter wasn’t as tired as he thought. A tiny smirk pulled at the corners mouth. 

“Calm down; take a breath,” Dean said, if for no other reason than prove he could remember other words. Once the vampire had shaken his hair out of his face and pulled back his fangs, Dean asked, “Where’s the angel?”

To Dean’s surprise, the creature gave him a tiny smile, his eyes lighting with mischief and recognition. “You’re him,” he said smoothly, hungrily. “The _human_.” 

A bit shaken – had he gained a reputation amongst the monsters in his search for Cas? – Dean slammed him against the bark again and spat out, “Where’s the angel?!”

“I don’t know,” the vampire retorted with a smirk. 

Well, Dean had had just about enough of this bullshit. With a quick flip of the blade in his hand, the hunter pinned the vamp’s arm against the tree, jerking the knife just a bit to let the fucker know he didn’t appreciate the attitude. Rolling his shoulder and sizing up the growling blood junkie, Dean knew he wasn’t going to get shit from this pony-tailed jack ass, so he bent down and picked up the strange-looking scythe the creature had dropped and sliced through its neck, letting the tree do the work of collecting the body.

Dean had barely gathered himself when another fanged freak came barreling out of the scrub and tackled him to the ground. Cursing himself for not being aware of the second attack, Dean struggled as the vampire above him snarled and snapped in his face. He’d managed to drop the scythe just out of reach – how the fuck did that always manage to happen? – and his knife was still buried in the tree, so the hunter just did what he could with bare hands to keep the thing from tearing him to pieces. He fought his hardest but he knew, after just a few seconds, that it wasn’t going to be enough. Dean was too tired, had been too startled, the vampire was too strong. It wasn’t going to take this jerk long to get the upper hand, pin him down, and rip him to pieces. As he fought with his last few rounds of strength, Dean managed to send out a quick thought: _I’m sorry, Cas. I wasn’t fast enough …._

But a blur of motion and noise streaked over him and the vamp was gone, rolling on the ground a few feet away, now under the meaty arms of another man – another vampire? – that raised a weapon that looked like it had been made out of a giant spinal column. Dean shuddered at what beast could possibly have supplied that spine, then thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t found out. The bigger man hissed, his fangs dropping out, as he swung the spine club down and silenced Dean’s attacker. 

The hunter watched him wearily once he gained his footing, raising the newly-recovered scythe as the vamp in the dark coat rose slowly from the ground. It seemed to have no immediate intention to charge him, but Dean Winchester hadn’t survived a hunter’s life this long for being foolish. Well. Not all the time, anyway. So he just kept his weapon as steady as he could and watched the other man as he wiped grimy palms on his coat.

A tiny quirk of lips formed around a slow Louisiana drawl. “What, no thanks for saving your hide?”

*****

Over a week of constant hiking and killing had taught Dean to swallow his pride and admit – at least to himself – that Benny had earned his trust. And the vampire had turned out to be manna from Heaven in a strange package: not needing to sleep, Benny watched over Dean as he managed to catch a few hours of sleep every night. The search for Cas may not have yielded any more positive results than before he met up with the vampire, but Dean had more energy because he could actually sleep now, so they covered more ground and made more headway. Every now and then, the creatures they came upon and hacked apart seemed to know something, even if they weren’t talking, and Benny proved nearly as good a tracker as Dean, given that he’d had plenty of time in Purgatory to recognize patterns. Several times, they’d managed to pick up trails that Dean could feel were leading to something big; he couldn’t say why he knew it, he just … _knew_. As if he could feel Cas getting closer.

A strange jolt of energy zipped through Dean’s shoulder at that thought. He rubbed at it, a bit absently, until he realized that the origin of the electric sense of awareness hummed through the handprint burned into his shoulder. When Benny called back to him to say, “I don’t think he knows anything,” Dean just sneered. 

“Oh, he knows,” the hunter said smoothly. 

He stalked over to the monster coughing and sputtering at the base of the maple tree. Another burst of hot sparks zinged through his shoulder. He bent down and closed in on the creature’s face.

“Where is the angel?” he asked calmly.

After a moment’s hesitation and a quiver of fear at the intensity in Dean’s eyes, the creature managed to choke out, “There’s a stream …”

Dean’s heart felt like it was hiccupping its way into his nasal passages. “Go on,” he growled. 

“Stream, in a clearing not far from here. I can show you…”

Dean sneered. _So you can slip away or leave us high and dry? Fat chance_. “How ‘bout you just tell me?”

“Three days journey,” he manages, “follow the stream. There’s a clearing. You’ll find your angel there.”

_Finally!_ But he couldn’t look too excited. Not yet. He threw an assessing glance to Benny, who simply tilted his head in confirmation. 

“You know what, mutt?” Dean said. “I believe you.”

As Dean drove the knife up through the monster’s jaw, he felt like smiling for the first time since he’d landed here months ago.

*****

_Even as we forgive all who have done  
us injury, may You, benevolent,  
forgive, and do not judge us by our worth. _  
~ Canto XI, lines 16-18

Castiel didn’t hug him back. That fact stuck in his mind as he trekked behind Dean and the vampire, crashing through the crackling undergrowth heading away from the stream. Dean had hugged him after jogging down to the bank of the water where Castiel had been rinsing the grime from his face. The hunter looked happier than he had done in Castiel’s presence in so long, and his friend’s expression of complete elation at finding him had torn at his heart nearly as much as staying away had done. Castiel had been so overwhelmed by an ebb of conflicting emotions that he hadn’t even thought to return the basic, simple gesture of Dean’s arms clasped around his back. Stupidly, Castiel wished for the opportunity back, a chance to connect – even on the briefest level – to the being that meant more to him than anything had in millennia. Perhaps ever. His opportunity had come and gone and Castiel couldn’t help but long for it in the tense silence of their journey.

The angel’s mind whirred as they moved through the desiccated forest. The angel couldn’t bring himself to regret seeing Dean again – especially now that being in his presence meant a much more concrete way to protect him – but he also couldn’t help but berate himself endlessly that this was the very basis of why he’d chosen to run in the first place. Dean was in danger every second that the seraph was at his side, and if anything happened to his charge now, with the man so close Castiel could reach out and touch his worn leather jacket, there would be no end to the penance he would need to inflict upon himself for eons to come. Yet again, Castiel’s willpower crumbled to feebleness in the face of Dean Winchester’s determination. 

_Cas, buddy, I need you._

The phrase had been his undoing. He’d never been able to turn away Dean in a time of need, and the fact that the typically stoic hunter had actually worded his emotions, his open admission of Castiel’s value to him, so nakedly had the last of the angel’s determination to flee and draw the leviathan away evaporating beneath him. The fact that the elder Winchester had been so readily able to forgive his cowardice and abandonment in his relief to find his friend again decided Castiel’s reaction as well. He had stopped arguing with the hunter, pointedly ignored glares from the surly vampire as they left the stream bank. 

Castiel knew that telling himself he’d be better equipped to protect Dean if he was close by was just rationalization, but it did have some truth to it. As they trudged along, he reached out with delicate tendrils of his fragile Grace, scanning for any threats to their safety. Perhaps if he managed to keep Dean safe until they reached this supposed human portal out of Purgatory, the hunter would remember him with this same kindness and value, and someday be able to forgive him for his greatest transgression: the abandonment yet to come.


	3. The Second Terrace: The Envious

**Chapter Two – The Second Terrace: The Envious**

_From what I've sown, this is the straw I reap:_  
O humankind, why do you set your hearts  
there where our sharing cannot have a part?  
~ Canto XIV, lines 87-89

For the first few days of their journey after picking up the angel, Benny began to truly doubt the hunter’s sanity. His methods of moving through the terrain – and its inhabitants – hadn’t become any less vicious or manic, even now that the angel was with them constantly. A few times, Benny watched the man capture and shake down a monster, the words “Where is the angel?” on his lips without thought; before the sentence could leave his new meal-ticket-slash-friend’s mouth, the being in question would lay a gentle hand on the hunter’s shoulder and bring the man out of his trance of adrenaline and panic with a round of disoriented blinking and a shake of his head. Without fail, these were the nights that Dean barely slept, his body trembling and turning endlessly on the forest floor as the angel watched over him, consumed with frustration at his helplessness. Benny couldn’t help but wonder if the strain of it all hadn’t scrambled the hunter’s eggs a bit.

In the end, he didn’t say anything to the man though, because he couldn’t really justify that it was his place. And if he were truthful about it, at least to himself, the vampire couldn’t say he wasn’t a little bit jealous. As tangled up and crazy as the relationship between the mentally-fried hunter and his bucket of Hot Wings was, Benny didn’t miss the signs of ruthless devotion in Dean’s manner, as if every atom of his being was dedicated to bringing the angel back to the waking world unharmed. What really sizzled the vampire’s bacon was how little that self-righteous hypocrite seemed to deserve the hunter’s loyalty. The angel bandied between a never-ending stream of whining apologies and meekly suggesting that they leave him behind at the end of each day. As if the nonstop murder frenzy they’d endured just to find the feathery bastard were beneath his mention. 

Leave him behind? That would suit Benny just fine. Ungrateful jackass.

Since there seemed to be little chance of that actually happening, Benny had no qualms about needling Dean’s fairy godmother at every possible opportunity. When they stopped to make camp as night closed in, the hunter had come over to clap a hand on his shoulder and laughingly commiserate about a story Benny had told earlier in the day; as Dean made free to chuckle and rough house with him, Benny caught a sidelong glance of the angel giving him a livid glare. At first, the vampire had written it off as part of the seraph’s ingrained hatred of his race … until he noticed that the fierce gaze intensified every time the hunter smiled at or touched him. Before awareness set in, he’d nearly passed it over with the rest of the angel’s sour attitude, but when he connected it to the myriad of pained gazes he’d caught Castiel focusing on Dean any time his compatriot directed his attention elsewhere, realization hit Benny quick and complete. He nearly laughed aloud at how absurd it was; because the angel was still glowering at him, Benny didn’t hesitate to poke the bear, as it were.

“Hey, Hot Wings—”

The angel scowled further. “I told you not to—”

“—why don’t you make yourself useful for a change,” the vampire teased sleekly. “Flutter off and get dinner for those of us who’ve actually contributed today, would you friend? Remember, I like my meat nice and fresh?”

Lowering his brow, Castiel growled in response. “I am an angel, not an errand boy; especially not for a walking abomination such as you.”

“No?” Benny responded easily. “I’ve heard you rather enjoy dancing every time your hunter here snaps his fingers.”

Castiel strode forward, hands clenching into fists at his sides, before Dean stepped between them.

“Cut it the fuck out, you two,” he snapped, “before I knock your heads together.”

He turned to the frowning angel and patted his arm. 

“I’m not hungry, Cas, but I would appreciate it if you would do a circle of the clearing and sweep for big-nasties, okay?”

“Of course, Dean,” Castiel answered, sparing the vampire a withering glare before stalking away into the trees.

When the angel had gone, Dean whirled back to Benny with an annoyed grimace.

“Think you could let up on him for five frickin’ minutes? He’s still a bit cuckoo-for-cocoa-puffs and I’m getting really freaking sick of feeling like I should be sending you to your rooms without dinner.”

“Or placating a jealous girlfriend, maybe?” Benny put in, simply because he couldn’t resist.

“Jesus, sometimes-” he started, pinching the bridge of his nose as he settled against a tree’s roots. When the insinuation landed, Dean sat up stiffly. “Just what the hell are you trying to imply?”

Benny smirked and held up his hands in mock surrender. “Nothing, friend,” he said with a laugh. “Not a thing.”

Dean sat back against a tree, only really relaxing a little bit. After a few moments, he gazed back into the trees. 

Not for the first time – nor, he suspected, the last – Benny felt a pull of envy at the intense and thoughtful look the hunter focused in the direction of the retreating angel. The vampire himself hadn’t been the subject of a gaze like that in decades and seeing it again here in this wasteland made him even more determined to get home and revenge his loss.

***** 

__  
My blood was so afire with envy that,  
When I had seen a man becoming happy,  
the lividness in me was plain to see.  
~ Canto XIV, lines 84-86

Castiel seethed with anger as he stalked through the trees surrounding their camp. Sensing only the scurrying of small beasts that would be of no concern to Dean’s safety, he focused his intuition towards the farther-off threats of larger creatures; they would most likely be drawn to Castiel’s presence rather than Dean’s, especially given his current emotional state. Despite his nearly unchanging facial expressions , Castiel had already been angry enough to unconsciously ignite two tiny brush fires just by failing to control the energy released from his Grace when upset. He couldn’t afford to be so careless, with his conspicuousness or his output of Grace.

Huffing in frustration, Castiel grumbled over the growing influence that this place sunk into his consciousness . The bestial nature of existence here seemed to be appealing to his most primal instincts; some of which he’d been unaware of even possessing before they reared their sullied heads. Ever since he’d joined with Dean and the vampire, emotions flooded him. First relief and guilt – he was unfortunately familiar with those two – then joy and fear, determination, contrition. Castiel found himself woefully unprepared to deal with them, especially this last: envy. He’d always thought that envy was the hallmark of lesser beings; yearning for things you couldn’t or didn’t have was such a useless, waste of time that he’d believed only fools succumbed to it. And yet, a gaping maw of covetousness gnawed at him as they traversed Purgatory with that smirking abhorrence of nature.

Castiel practically shook with envy at every shared laugh between Dean and the vampire. Swallowing his hunger for the casual camaraderie that they shared – despite Dean’s typically rough-tongued banter – the angel knew only too well that his awkwardness rendered him too naïve and guilty to negotiate what seemed to come so effortlessly to humans (and former humans). The more he thought of his own uneasiness and naiveté with the social interaction that Dean managed with ease, the more hopeless the task became to prevent his mind from whirling over the faceless scores of women who’d touched Dean in a more intimate way than he could even understand. The angel felt deranged, but he couldn’t stop himself from coveting their innate ability to press close enough to touch his skin, inhale his breaths as they kissed his mouth, revel in and respond to the nearness of their bodies that Castiel had only had a glimpse of in that embrace by the stream. The craving for the capacity that these forgettable women had to know Dean in a way he couldn’t burned in him, ate at him, until he wanted to tear from their heads that knowledge of his hunter. 

_His_ hunter. __**Castiel’s** Dean. 

He had raised the man from Hell with his own hands, rebuilt him piece by piece from a shard of his Grace. Knew him, body and soul, because he’d been the one to give both things back to the man. He, Castiel, had recreated Dean Winchester from the tiniest pieces of his tortured, broken spirit, had seen that beneath that fractured soul lay a pure heart and the greatest strengths and weaknesses of humanity, all wrapped into one seemingly insignificant human. The angel felt incensed that beings existed in that world that could not, would not, ever truly understand the marvel of the man they flung themselves at so casually. 

Castiel yearned, to his very core, to know this man in every way that existed, and he found himself irrationally hating anyone who possessed the comprehension that he did not. Most of all, he fumed with jealousy of his fallen sister. The envy of it was like fire in his blood. An angel, once, who knew Dean Winchester in that most fundamental of ways. She’d lain with him, had the audacity to place her hand on Castiel’s mark on the man’s body as she took him, and had flung that carnal ownership in the face of not just Castiel but everyone in the barn that night. She’d known it was Castiel’s print on Dean’s shoulder, as well. He’d felt the jolt of awareness – both of Dean and of his sister – through his Grace when she touched it, felt the undercurrent of her smug teasing when she kissed him in front of Castiel. He had respected her once, loved her – insofar as he understood love at the time – not just as the general of his garrison, his commanding officer, but as his sister. And now he could only flare up with jealousy.

The angel nearly screamed in fury as he continued pacing an endless ring around their temporary campsite. Livid with envy, the angel howled a challenge to the creatures in the night, aching for the release that would come from combat against a monster just as mad as he.


	4. The Third Terrace: The Wrathful

**Chapter Three – The Third Terrace: The Wrathful**

_"What shall we do to one who'd injure us_  
if one who loves us earns our condemnation?"  
~Canto XV, lines 104-105

 

“I don’t care what you’re comfortable with,” Dean snarled to the vampire’s umpteenth only-slightly-veiled suggestion to leave Castiel behind. “We agreed to—”

“—find the angel. _Find_ the angel,” Benny repeated. “Well, mission accomplished, chief. But it doesn’t seem like your little feathered friend here is interested in hopping on the gravy train out of Monster Land, and seeing as how all he’s doing by tagging along is painting a bull’s-eye on our backs, I say—”

“He’s coming,” Dean said through gritted teeth. He threw a challenging glare to the angel, who just pressed his lips together and said nothing. “Good. Glad that’s settled. Let’s get the fuck out of here before more leviathan show up and try to make us into chunky soup.”

Several hours – and several kills – later, Dean hiked at the back of the group, steely-eyed and jittery from unspent rage. He could feel the angry tension in his muscles ratchet up a notch every time he glanced ahead at the back of his angel friend, trudging silently in front of him. Eventually, when Cas sighed heavily for what seemed, to Dean, like the millionth time that day, the hunter couldn’t stop the fury from boiling up from his gut and out of his throat.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Cas?” he shouted.

Benny whipped around to face Dean with a raised eyebrow. Castiel, on the other hand, just spun slowly and stared back at the hunter with a resigned expression that said he’d been expecting this conversation for days now, which only fueled Dean’s anger.

“First you fucking ditch me in the middle of the night and high-tail away as if your ass is on fire, and now that I’ve actually found you, you suggest leaving at every God-damned opportunity and act like you’re going to bolt the second I take my eyes off you. I want some fucking answers.”

Castiel sighed again and Dean couldn’t help clenching his fists around his weapons.

“I told you, Dean,” the angel said meekly, “I was trying to keep you from being hurt.”

The hunter laughed, a harsh exhalation that sounded like sandpaper on his deep voice. “Keep me from being hurt? Are you shitting me?” 

 

The angel’s brow furrowed, unsure of how to answer that question, but he needn’t have bothered, as the elder Winchester steamed on, his hands gesturing sharply under Castiel’s nose with his Purgatory-made weapon.

“Let’s recap, shall we? You spend a year lying to me; you make a deal with Crowley;” Castiel tried to interject, but Dean ignored him, “you almost get killed _undoing_ your deal with Crowley; I spend seven months thinking you’re dead; then you’re back and you don’t know who you are; then you do and you’re crazy; then you’re crazy but you’re not fighting; then you’re crazy but you _are_ fighting because, God damn it, I said cursed or not I want you on my fucking team.” 

Dean’s eyes practically spit flames of wrath and Castiel just stood there, letting the hunter rage at him.

“ ‘Cursed or not,’ Cas; that’s what I said. We’re _family,_ you jack ass. We deal with this shit _together_ because that’s what family does. And I thought you got it; you volunteered to help even when you knew I wouldn’t force you, so I thought that you understood.”

He watched as the angel’s face pinched in regret and sorrow, but Dean didn’t have it in him to soften his tone.

“And then the first chance you get, the _instant_ we touch down in this literally-God-forsaken-place, what do you do? You fucking ditch me. _**Again**_. For the greater good,” he finishes, his voice laden with razor-edged sarcasm.

It wasn’t anger, Dean knew, but sorrow and shame that caused his friend’s resolve to break, caused the angel to drop his gaze to the ground and mumble, “I was trying to protect you.”

“And when exactly has that line of reasoning ever fucking worked for any of us? You say you did it for me, to protect me, but that’s bullshit, Cas. Just like it was bullshit when Dad sold his soul for me, just like it was bullshit when I did it for Sammy. Because if you had stopped to think for one second about how I would feel about it —” Dean growled through a break in his voice, “—you’d have known that I wouldn’t have wanted you to leave me. We handle. This shit. _Together_. And there I was, scared shitless not just for myself but thinking my best friend was out there terrified and crazy and in danger. It fucking broke me just thinking that you might need me and I couldn’t get to you.”

Tears welled in Dean’s eyes and his voice gave way from the callous barks of anger into a cool, severe undertone. 

“I prayed to you, Cas. I never prayed to anyone or anything before I met you, but damn it, I prayed every moment I could get my head together, and you just … ignored me.”

“I didn’t,” Cas whispered, a dry rasp. “I heard you.”

“And you don’t see how that’s worse? You knew I was out there doing nothing but killing and praying and trying to get to you, and you just left me to the wolves. Thank fuck Benny came along because it’s the only way I could rest enough not to fucking die, and we took apart Purgatory piece by piece to find you … and it’s like that means nothing to you because all you want to do is give up. How do you expect me to feel about that, Cas? You say you did this to keep me from getting hurt? Well, how the fuck do you think you did on that one?”

Castiel’s eyes searched the other man’s face. Dean watched the normally blank appearance pinch into the tiny minutia of his friend’s facial expressions that Dean had learned to interpret over the last four years: pain, sorrow, shame, guilt, misery. 

“I’m sorry,” was all the angel could manage to will from his lips.

Dean waited, incredulous, for some more fulfilling explanation and got none. 

“Fuck you,” he growled before turning his back to the brooding angel and silent vampire, stomping away into the undergrowth.

*****

_Darkness of Hell and of a night deprived_  
of every planet, under meager skies,  
as overcast by clouds as sky can be,

_had never served to veil my eyes so thickly_  
nor covered them with such rough-textured stuff  
as smoke that wrapped us there in Purgatory; 

_my eyes could not endure remaining open;_  
~ Canto XVI, lines 1-7

 

It had all been so uncomplicated, back when Castiel’s garrison had first been charged with raising Dean Winchester from Hell. Not that he had thought that the act itself would be _easy_ , per se, but that everything had been so much more concrete and straight-forward back then. At least, Castiel had thought it that way. Storm the gates of Hell, brave the savagery set forth in front of them. Fight, yes; die, perhaps. But battle for good, for God, for the Righteous Man who needed to be saved. It was an honor that Castiel had been chosen as the one to rescue Dean; Samael, the general of the garrison and Castiel’s ultimate superior, was expected to lead and rally the troops, make way for one of the lower officers to carry out the task. Castiel was by no means the next angel in the garrison’s chain of command – a Captain, true, but there were still a few angels who outranked him – and yet it was he who had been chosen. 

“The Word from on High,” Samael had said. “It is your duty, Castiel. Your privilege. You will save Dean Winchester from Hell.”

And that was as complex as it had been to him then. An honor and privilege, one of such glory that few other angels had ever had the chance to achieve, and he had been chosen for the task. It hadn’t even occurred to Castiel to be afraid of Hell, afraid of failure or death. They were fighting for God, so he thought. For right and righteousness. Even the horrifying reality of what Hell was, what Hell really _meant_ , did not diminish for Castiel that the plan, the job, was simple: storm Hell, save Dean Winchester. What would come after this task had never even crossed his mind at the time. Sitting against a tree surrounded by the unquiet darkness of Purgatory, Castiel could still picture the grotesque, deformed abominations that guarded the gates, lining the corpse-strewn hallways of the Pit; he could still hear the snarls of the twisted beasts that fought him and wails of the tormented creatures bent and broken by torture. He remembered being shaken to the very core of his Grace with the horror of it all and the way that his whole being had trembled with vile sickness and frail pity when his hands first touched the tattered remains of Dean’s soul, now cracked at the edges perhaps but complete and housed in the man sleeping a few feet away. Even accounting for all the atrocities he’d seen then, Castiel believed that he would rather storm the gates of Hell every day for the rest of eternity than continue to suffer the onslaught of his own weakness and futility in Purgatory. 

His eyes fluttered shut as he leaned back against the tree that towered above the two of them, reaching out with his Grace to scan for enemies and finding only the lingering, cold presence of the vampire, stalking in ever-widening circles around their tiny encampment. Though the two of them had exchanged no words as Dean settled in for the night, Castiel was grateful that the vampire seemed to understand the angel’s need to stay with his friend, watch over him as he slept even though the hunter certainly would extend the angel neither speech nor kindness. Another piece of Castiel’s penance; another item on a list that never seemed to stop growing. 

Castiel cast his eyes toward the man sleeping on the hard ground a few feet away from him. Dean had given him one steely glare a few hours ago when they’d first made camp, then resolutely turned his back to the angel and settled himself at the base of a neighboring tree, bone machete in one hand, demon knife in the other, propped up in a sitting position as if readying himself for an attack. As soon as the hunter’s head had dropped forward in sleep, chin to chest, Castiel had roused himself and moved on soundless feet, gently removing the weapons from Dean’s hands and laying them on the ground within easy reach; he’d used his gentlest grip to ease the man down flat on the ground, pillowing his trench coat beneath Dean’s head. Castiel had been tempted to seat himself beside his friend but feared angry retribution or stubborn refusal to return to sleep should the hunter wake in the middle of the night and see him there, so Castiel forced himself to be content to watch over Dean from the tree a few yards away as the man’s muscles spasmed and his face twitched in sleep. 

The small but worrying paroxysms had not lessened over the course of the last hour, and Castiel had begun to rule out the possibility of a nightmare and fear the likelihood that his friend was in pain from some injury that he was too stubborn to mention because of the self-imposed silence between them. Padding over to where Dean lay curled in on himself, Castiel placed two gentle fingers on his friend’s temple. Letting his eyes flutter shut, Castiel reached out with his Grace, delving into his friend’s body to try to find the source of the pain. The angel jerked back in surprise. It was as if every organ in his friend’s body gave a simultaneous low, pained moan, all echoing the same word: “alcohol”. His brows drew together in confusion before the situation became clear. Over the years of their acquaintance, Castiel had witnessed Dean consume more liquor and beer than non-alcoholic drinks; given that he was a being that had a nearly limitless tolerance for these substances, it never occurred to him that months of extended absence from addictive substances would clearly have an adverse if not dangerous affect on a man who imbibed with stunning regularity.

With trembling fingers, Castiel reached out again to touch his friend’s forehead, now noticeably clammier with perspiration. The bodily assessment that raced into his mind was both calming and disturbing: the damage done to various organs was substantial yet within Castiel’s ability to heal, but the symptoms of withdrawal were beyond his capabilities; Castiel could muster his weak Grace and remove the imminent health risk, but he wouldn’t be able to stop the man from shuddering and moaning in want of drink. Even if Castiel did heal the internal damage, it would weaken his Grace enough that he wouldn’t be able to use any of his angelic powers for the next several days at least, so if Dean suffered any further damage at the hands of the near-constant combat they encountered, Castiel would be helpless to prevent his friend’s suffering. 

What to do, then? Heal his friend now and halt the terrible march of internal damage so that he may sleep comfortably, even though Castiel couldn’t save him from the nights full of quakes? Save his Grace’s power on the assumption that he may have to heal a future injury? Either way, his friend would suffer because Castiel was weak and could not be all that Dean needed him to be. Because despite years of lessons to teach him otherwise, Castiel kept making mistakes whose costs were always paid out by the person who deserved it the least. 

A sudden fit of rage pushed the muscles in Castiel’s legs into stiffness, rocketing him up from the ground to pace in a tight, futile circle around his sleeping friend. Would Castiel always end up being so feeble? Could he never receive a kindness from the universe to allow him to protect the one person he most cared for? Could he stand the weight of the penance heaped upon him for his misdeeds? Why must he always be doomed to be just within reach of what Dean requires but never quite strong enough to give it to him? 

Castiel struck out in fury, his fists pummeling the nearest object, which happened to be the rough bark of a maple tree. The knotted and scarred trunk did not bend under his attack, of course, but Castiel did not cease his assault even when he heard the popping cracks of bones breaking in his hands. He let out a single furious howl of anguish and frustration, earning him a low moan from a few feet away. The angel rushed back to his friend’s side, bending over to watch the hunter’s eyes trace restlessly back and forth beneath his eyelids. Another moan. That decided Castiel’s actions for him. Reaching out with two bent, bloody fingers, Castiel focused on willing his Grace into Dean’s body and repairing the damage. The hunter stiffened for a moment, then collapsed back to the ground. The tense muscles in the hunter’s forehead relaxed as Dean slipped into a deeper slumber. 

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel whispered as he settled himself on the ground next to the elder Winchester’s head. Whatever his friend might say if he woke up, the angel now refused to leave his side. 

"I’m sorry,” he said again, because it was the only thing to say. 

The angel reclined against the tree trunk, simmering in his futile wrath, his only company being the pain of traces of his Grace slowly knitting his finger bones back together through the long hours of darkness yet to come. 

*****

__  
Kill! Kill! I saw him now, weighed down by death,  
sink to the ground, although his eyes were bent  
always on Heaven: they were Heaven's gates,

 _Praying to his high Lord, despite the torture,_  
to pardon those who were his persecutors;  
his look was such that it unlocked compassion."  
~ Canto XV, lines 108-114

 

Dean may not have been able to see it – still stewing, as the hunter was, in his days-long fury against the third member of their company – but Benny didn’t miss the signs of fatigue that had begun to eke out in the angel. Whenever fights were over and the world around them calmed for a moment, the vampire glimpsed slumping shoulders, dipping of head and neck, which bespoke exhaustion and bleakness. The first time he’d seen it, Benny couldn’t help but think that the jumped-up jack ass had brought it on himself, but the longer time went by, the less apt he was to judge. He’d seen the look before, that expression of weariness of someone just barely holding it together. The angel was a self-righteous ass, no doubt about it, but there was something more going on there that Benny just couldn’t wrinkle out, but he was certain it had everything to do with Dean and why the hunter’s sudden renewed vigor just happened to correspond with the angel’s slow collapse.

It didn’t occur to the vampire just how much the angel was giving up until nightfall, three days after the fight that had caused Dean to lose his head in anger. Benny had set out on his usual rounds guarding wherever they made camp that night, not just for Dean’s safety but to remove himself from the presence of that insufferable angel. Something about the night just smelled wrong, felt wrong, though, so the vampire had elected not to widen his parole as usual, circling just out of sight in the scrub near the place Dean laid sleeping, looking for the monsters that might sniff out the tasty human bait. The longer he prowled, the more he expected to see Dean tussling with some creature that had managed to give him the slip and dash into the clearing. What he most certainly had not expected to see, however, was the angel on his knees next to the sleeping hunter, rocking back and forth and … well, he just plain looked to be sobbing. Benny moved in closer for a better look.

Through a bend in the trees not far away, Benny managed to get near enough to hear the stream of words and he finally figured out that the angel wasn’t crying, he was praying. The words that rumbled out of the angel’s mouth were gibberish to Benny, but the gesture was unmistakable; the leaner man wavered on his knees with tears welling in his eyes, casting his eyes upwards to the sky and clearly begging for something. Only when the vampire managed to sift out Dean’s name from the stream of sounds did it become obvious what the angel was praying _for_. Every time the hunter twitched in his sleep, the angel’s voice became a little louder, a little more desperate in his prayer. The angel would pause in his recitations just long enough to press a hand to the hunter’s head, healing whatever ailed the man and unmistakably draining himself a little more each time he did. As jaded as Benny was towards “Hot Wings”, he couldn’t help but feel a pull in his heart at the sight of it. 

He’d heard broken men before, witnessed what desperation and soul-deep sorrow sounded like when a man pleaded for the life of the person he loved. Once a man got to that level of desperation, there wasn’t a single thing on God’s green Earth that he wouldn’t sacrifice to save a loved one; Benny knew that better than anyone. And Benny had once-upon-a-time been the recipient of many of those prayers for mercy; as the years went on, he’d granted more and more of them because he couldn’t stand the ruthless bloodshed that only brought more despair. So when he heard this angel praying for Dean’s life with what sounded like the last remains of his heart, the vampire decided that maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe the angel _had_ been worthy of Dean’s devotion all this time.

*****

Benny stalked along, hacking away at the undergrowth as he and the hunter sparred about his former drinking habits. Despite the general pull of camaraderie that the vampire had gained for Dean, he couldn’t help but be riled at his new friend’s rough-edged pessimism. With an internal chuckle, Benny realized it was also part of what he liked about the man, but his temper clicked into place every time Dean groused out another one of his arrogant assumptions that Benny was just another dyed-in-the-wool killing machine like all the other beasties he’d hacked apart over the years.

“—the hell you know about the value of life?” he heard the hunter grumble. “You’re a _vampire_.”

Benny smirked a bit against his annoyance. “And I think we both know which of our kinds kills more humans.”

“Statistically speaking,” the angel piped up in his usual low rumble, “that would be your—” 

“Yes, thank you, Cas,” Dean said in a flat voice.

Benny grinned a bit. First words he’d said to the angel in days. Maybe it wasn’t a kiss-and-make-up apology, but it was a start. Benny bandied back and forth with Dean about his blood habits a few minutes more, unable to restrain his exasperation at the hunter for his flat refusal to believe that a vampire might actually put any stock whatsoever in human life. Finally, he couldn’t take the human venting his spleen any longer and growled out a sharp reply.

“What does it matter what you believe,” he snapped, more harshly than he meant to, “when you got your head so far up your own ass you don’t even see we’re already done for. Angel knows it. We are never going to make it with him next to us, glowing like a beacon.” 

The hunter’s jaw was set in a firm, unyielding line. “Do I need to remind you of our deal? Of what you committed to?”

“He is gonna get us killed!” Benny spat.

Dean’s form became rigid and Benny wanted to kick himself. He’d been wondering idly whether or not the emotional upheaval that the angel suffered each night was part of what made him such a beast magnet during the day – maybe angels in distress sent out some sort of supernatural shockwave? – but he hadn’t really had a chance to mention it to Hot Wings and he certainly hadn’t meant to spit it out in front of Dean. Benny opened his mouth – though whether he meant to argue or backtrack and apologize, he couldn’t be quite sure – but he never got the chance.

Too late, Benny noticed the angel’s head sweeping the skyline like a retriever with the scent of a duck taking wing. “We may get to test that theory ….”

Dean’s body locked into combat stance. “More monsters?” 

“Leviathan,” the angel responded with restrained panic. Benny fought the urge to curse.

All of the turmoil of the past week melted away as the hunter cast a worried glance at his friend. “Why don’t you blip outta here?”

“I can’t,” the angel said hurriedly. “They’re too close. _Run.”_

The next few minutes passed in a hazy blur of flight and tensed muscles readying for combat. A shower of dirt ahead of them and the sick slurp of black ooze announced the touch-down of leviathan number one at the head of their group, causing Dean to dodge to one side, which unfortunately cut the hunter off from help. Benny whirled around just in time to see that the angel had underestimated the leviathans’ speed and assumed that they would come at the group from the rear, so he had taken off in the wrong direction. Benny swore to himself, but felt a mild stroke of relief as he heard the hacking slice that accompanied Dean’s swift stroke of decapitation on the first monster. A quick glance back showed him that Castiel hadn’t been so lucky.

The angel had been knocked to the ground in his kerfuffle with the female leviathan, but she’d been arrogant enough to discount Benny as a potential threat. Hefting his weapon, the vampire figured that he owed it to the bastard – and maybe to Dean as well – to save his angelic hide. A swift stroke of his arm and the female’s head toppled to the ground. Benny nearly chuckled at the look of surprise that graced the angel’s face as he lowered his weapon and offered him a hand up off the ground. A moment passed between the two of them as Dean bent to wipe his blade on the male leviathan’s suit. The angel didn’t speak and neither did Benny, but the angel’s steady blue-eyed gaze seemed to impart something to him, and Benny just nodded. It wasn’t an apology, exactly, not from either of them. But it was good enough.

Benny chuckled to himself a bit. Maybe the maiden aunt deserved just a little bit of peace after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Samael, the angel that I chose as the leader of Castiel’s garrison, is an actual seraph referenced in Jewish lore and was chosen for a very specific reason. In the Talmud, Samael is referred to as “the angel of death”. He is less of a grim reaper – in the sense of an angel sent to ferry the soul from the living world to Hell – as he is the _minister_ of death: he is an archangel who administers death to the human by judging them with a sword placed over his/her head and placing a drop of gall on their tongue which causes death. In corresponding Roman Catholic lore, Samael is seen as the negative/Hell-bound counterpart to the archangel Michael, who not only leads the armies of the Heavenly Host but ferries worthy souls to Heaven. As such, given that Supernatural canon lore has Michael established as the ultimate leader of the Host and the chosen warrior of the End of Days, I felt it appropriate that Samael, his Talmudic/Biblical counterpart, would be his number two in the chain of command and the leader of Castiel’s garrison chosen to wage war on Hell and raise Dean. It’s a little detail, I realize, but half of what I loved about SPN was these little gems of “real” lore. If you ever want a huge, gabbling fangirl lecture from me, ask me about Castiel’s origins from the lore surrounding the archangel Cassiel. ^_^


	5. The Fourth Terrace: The Slothful

**Chapter Four – The Fourth Terrace: The Slothful**  
  
 _And, with the coloring that love prefers,_  
my eyes transformed the wanness of her features.  
And when her speech had been set free, then she  
began to sing so that it would have been  
most difficult for me to turn aside.  
"I am," she sang, "I am the pleasing siren,  
who in mid-sea leads mariners astray-  
there is so much delight in hearing me.”  
~Canto XIX, lines 14-21 

 

Dean blew out a deep breath as he hunkered down against a tree in the darkness. The last few days had gone better than he’d thought; less monsters – still plenty, but not as overwhelming as before – more ground covered, more pleasant chatter between the three of them. It seemed as if fate might have given them a freaking break for once, as soon as he’d gotten back on an even keel with Cas. There were still bubbles of his anger under the surface, especially since Cas seemed completely unwilling to give Dean any solid answers to his accusations, but every time he felt riled up about it Dean just tried to take a deep breath and remind himself that it didn’t really matter anymore. Cas was here with them, he was safe now, and so was Dean. Well, as safe as could be expected. 

Dean even felt like his body was working better. Something about the week or so, even while he was still pissed at Cas, had him sleeping better. He still woke up with the shakes sometimes, but most times he managed to get back to sleep, and he usually ended up with a good, solid five hours or so. He hadn’t had five hours of sleep every night in … ever, maybe. Not since before he was a hunter, anyway. So he actually sort of looked forward to it when he stretched out under the tree that night once Benny had gone off to secure the area and Cas had planted himself nearby. It had been a long day of walking and he could use some good shut-eye. Wrenching off his coat and throwing it over his shoulders like a blanket, Dean splayed out on the ground, closed his eyes, and let his body relax.

But sleep didn’t seem to want to come that night. The shakes had taken over his muscles, his head was pounding, and he couldn’t seem to stop his mind from racing. Frustrated, he curled up a little more and pulled his jacket tighter around him, but it just didn’t seem to do any good. With a grimace, Dean noticed that his hands were trembling uncontrollably now and his stomach had started to heave. Nearly ready to sit up and try shaking out his hands in frustration, Dean froze when he saw Cas glance at his shuddering form and get up with a resigned sigh.

He couldn’t quite explain why he felt it best, but Dean was compelled to stay quiet and maintain the illusion that he was asleep as the angel padded over to him and squatted down near his head. With a quiet exhalation of the hunter’s name on his lips and a broken “I’m sorry”, Castiel reached out two fingers towards Dean’s temple. With whip-crack speed, Dean realized why his nights had been so restful lately. He snaked out a hand and clasped Cas’s wrist before he had a chance to touch Dean’s face.

“No,” the hunter whispered. 

The angel’s forearm jumped in his grasp. Dean propped himself up on an elbow and gazed up into his friend’s face.

“Dean,” Cas said, not quite able to mask his surprise. “I … didn’t realize you were awake.”

“Yeah, I got that,” he said flatly. After a long moment where the angel only appeared progressively guiltier, Dean finally said, “You’ve been healing me, haven’t you? When I’m sleeping and the withdrawal gets bad.”

It wasn’t really a question. The angel’s expression told Dean everything he needed to know. But he said it anyway.

“That’s why I’ve been sleeping so well. That’s why you’ve been looking so tired. You’re tanking your mojo to help me sleep.”

Cas tried to look defiant and fell well short of the mark. “It’s the least I can do, all things considered.”

“Cas,” Dean said, his voice equal parts annoyance and concern, “I don’t want you leaving yourself drained just to help me sleep at night.”

Something warred in Cas’s face at that, something Dean was sure he wasn’t telling him, but eventually the angel just nodded. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

Dean felt his lips quirk up at the corners without giving permission for them to do so. “Don’t apologize for helping me, dude. Just don’t drain yourself on my account, okay?”

Cas tipped his head to the side quizzically and something pulled in Dean’s chest. He’d missed that expression.

“I want to help you, Dean.”

Dean smiled wryly and, before he realized what he was saying, blurted out, “Then how ‘bout you volunteer to be a better pillow than these tree roots?”

An air of mild shock graced the angel’s face. “I don’t see how—” he started to say.

“Honestly, Cas,” Dean interrupted, “it would help just to have you near me and to have something to take my mind off it, okay?”

Cas’s brows drew together but he just nodded slowly. “If that is what you want, Dean.”

Dean jerked his chin towards the tree, so Castiel removed his trench and settled himself against the trunk, folding the coat across the hollow of his crossed legs. The angel stiffened slightly when Dean dropped his head into the divot created over Cas’s ankles. As bizarre as it might be to get this cozy with the awkward angel, having something other than sticks to rest his head on was definitely a step in the right direction. His body still trembled, but it was a hell of a lot more comfortable. More than that, though, Dean admitted to himself that he’d come to find Cas’s presence soothing. After a few moments of silent shaking, Dean felt Cas’s chilled fingers rest gently across his forehead.

“No mojo,” Dean said, trying to sound stern but it just ended up coming out sluggish. The cool touch on his hot forehead helped chase away some of his headache; his eyelids began to droop.

“No,” Castiel confirmed. “Sleep now, Dean.”

*****

__  
Under the blanket of sleep, Dean drifted far back into his own mind. Images wove in and out in front of his eyes; belatedly, part of his mind realized that it had been some time since he had a dream that wasn’t a nightmare. But this didn’t feel like a nightmare. It felt safe. He didn’t know why he felt safe, he just knew that he was. He also felt … watched.

_Dean moved through trees that seemed to have both sprung from nowhere and always been there. The forest wasn’t all dull colors and intimidating noises – though his sleepy mind didn’t know why he thought it should be – but lush and fragrant with new life. Hunting. He was hunting. He hadn’t been hunting in years. Though, maybe he wasn’t really hunting because there was no weapon in his hand. Maybe he wasn’t hunting an animal. Maybe he was looking for something. He heard the babbling sounds of water in the distance. Maybe he was looking for whatever was in the stream. Dean started off in the direction of the sounds._

_It seemed to take forever to get to the water – far longer than the it should have, if Dean’s gauging the distance of the churning noises of the water were correct, but the walk was pleasant and he didn’t mind the journey. Something was propelling him, drawing him towards the right place, so he didn’t fear that he might miss whatever it was that he was hunting. A noise caught Dean’s ears and he realized suddenly that **that** was what he’d been following: a low hum of melody and words, like a deep voice singing. The more he consciously listened for the song, the louder it seemed to get, and the louder the song became, the more Dean felt intoxicated by it. Some part of him was startled that it wasn’t a woman singing, but he didn’t know why he thought it should be. He had heard women singing before, so now he would hear a man. Of course the voice was deep. It only made sense. The song was perfect, and it was leading him to the water._

_When Dean broke through the trees, he saw a trail leading down to the water. He knew this place, this stream. A strange flicker crossed his vision, and he saw a man in a dirty coat huddled at the stream’s edge, catching water in his cupped hands to scrub across his worn, tired face. But the picture of the bedraggled man seemed to shift out of focus the instant he tried to concentrate on it. Another tiny flash and Dean smiled as the picture returned to focus. There! That was what he’d been hunting all along._

_Castiel stood knee deep in the stream, water lapping against the legs of his familiar dark suit. Dean smiled as he jogged down the path to stand at the shoreline. He watched as his friend waded a bit further out into the water, the tails of his coat’s belt drawing lazy ripples on the surface as they dragged behind him. When the angel turned to greet him, Dean felt a rush of contentment so warm he nearly felt sleepy from it. The angel in this dream was not a bedraggled, fractured creature running from monsters. The Castiel that strode through the water as if he were flying was the stalwart “holy tax account” that Dean had first met several years ago. Dean was surprised by this, but happy. Made happier when he realized that it was Castiel who was singing to him. Singing **for** him._

_The words were foreign to Dean’s ears but he felt them pull at the very core of his being. Without thinking, he strode out into the water, eager to be nearer to the enthralling melody and to his friend. The farther he waded into the stream, the heavier Dean felt, but now he realized that it wasn’t sleepiness. The closer he got to Castiel, whose deep baritone voice composed an even more complicated tune as Dean neared, the more Dean realized it was **warmth** that was making him heavy. No. Not warmth. Heat. _

_No. Not heat. **Heat.**_

_The sensation of the cool water, now high enough to hit his groin, made Dean gasp out. **Heat**. He felt it roll over his body as the song sought out that place in his belly and stoked the heat. No. Not heat. **Fire.** Arousal lit his senses aflame, and it seemed to start and end with that song. The song that plaited lust into every nerve ending and laced every part of his body with sweet, hot desire. _

_Dean’s lips trembled as he drew in a sharp breath. Castiel reached out a hand to Dean and he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to take it. He didn’t **want** to resist. Only their fingers touched, but Dean felt the touch, the vibration of the song, radiate throughout his entire body, stopping to pool low in that place that so ached to be touched. The song swelled and so did he. Dean didn’t even consider objecting as Castiel drew him in, drew him close, drank from his lips like someone parched from thirst. _

Dean’s head spun as his angel kissed him, pressing their bodies together in the water that rose with every swell of the song rising around him. That’s when Dean realized that it was Castiel’s whole being that sung to him, clasping them together in a grip as tight as a vice but soft as lace. Smooth as silk. Plush as velvet. Dean felt the angel’s body glide against his in the ebb tide of the water, a huff of breath leaving his mouth as he gripped the slighter man’s hips and felt the heat of his body match Dean’s. Castiel’s lips quirked up in a tiny smile before catching the hunter’s again in a branding kiss. 

 

Feeling drunk with the ease – the very **rightness** – of his overwhelming want, Dean threaded his arms around the angel’s shoulders and let his body sing along with the song as it pulled him underneath the warm, lapping waves. As soon as their grasping mouths sunk beneath the surface, everything that was himself seemed to sing out the angel’s name, and the angel’s deep, velvety voice seemed to only say Dean, Dean, **Dean** …

“Dean? Dean? _Dean_?”

As Dean floated back to the surface of his consciousness, he followed his first instinct to turn towards the hands that were gently shaking his shoulders. The voice wasn’t singing anymore, but there was no mistaking that it was the same voice. A small moan escaped his lips when he realized that those lips were alone now, no longer singing, no longer pressed up against a warm, damp pair that seemed just as drunk with euphoric lust. The shaking increased in speed and intensity and the moan turned to a groan. Dean managed to peel his eyes open, expecting to see a ripple of rainbow-prism water. Instead, Castiel’s face, heavy with too many nights’ growth of beard and pinched with worry, swam into view.

“No more singing?” Dean blurted without thought.

He watched dazedly as Castiel’s brows knit together in confusion. 

“No one was singing, Dean,” he said simply. “You were groaning in your sleep. I was concerned that you may be ill again, but you told me not to heal you. I thought it best to wake you and ask because your voice did not sound particularly … distressed. In actuality, you sounded …”

Cas trailed into an embarrassed silence. Dean breathed in a deep lungful of air, laced through with a smell that he had come to learn over the years must come from Cas himself. Suddenly, reality seemed to slam into Dean full force, several epiphanies piling up against the forward edge of Dean’s mind: he’d been laying in Cas’s lap—while having a disturbingly sexual dream—about Cas—from which his friend had woken him because he’d been making “happy noises”. Loud “happy noises”. The last, most embarrassing bombshell took another few moments to land as Dean was forcing his muddled mind to take an inventory of his body: he felt raging heat and a telling warm wetness on his stomach, and he was damn sure it wasn’t water.

Dean practically flew to his feet and away from the befuddled, concerned angel still seated at the base of the tree.

"Dean, are you—?” Cas started to say, but Dean didn’t let him finish.

"I'm fine," Dean said quickly. “Dream. Just a dream.”

Dean nearly cursed at the nervous quaver in his voice. He prayed desperately that Cas would just take him at his word and shut the hell up. Dean didn’t think he could handle hearing Cas’s voice right now, not while he still had evidence of a wet dream and a raging erection in his pants and the lush, gravelly baritone crooning like a siren in his head.

“A nightmare?” Cas said, starting towards him. The angel stopped short when Dean thrust out a hand to his shoulder, keeping the other man at arm’s length.

“No,” Dean said, unable to control the huskiness that slipped into the word. He cleared his throat. “No. Just a dream. I’m fine. I—” he glanced up at Cas’s face and instantly regretted it; beneath the concern was a tiny flicker of understanding, “—I …I’ll be back in a minute.”

Maybe it made him a total chicken shit, but Dean took off into the forest to escape the angel. He didn’t know _where the fuck_ that dream had come from, but he needed to put some serious foot traffic between it and him. Jesus, he hadn’t had a wet dream since he was about thirteen – probably since he’d been having actual sex since he was about fourteen – and now he was coming in his pants just from dreaming about _kissing_ somebody?! And not just “somebody”; _Cas_. Nerdy dude with wings. 

What the fuck was he going to get that damn dream out of his head? He couldn’t even begin to think about what he was going to do with the erection that was starting to ache like a motherfucker. He sure as hell wasn’t going to do either one of the two things he’d normally do in this situation because both of them would end up involving something to do with Castiel’s mouth, whether it was his hand and a mental replay of the song from the dream or a real-life replay with the actual mouth that had done the singing – 

_Son of a bitch._

Dean shook his head to clear it and took another few giant leaps into the forest. This needed to stop. This place was clearly starting to fuck with him. He just … he just needed to take a few deep breaths, grit his teeth, and fuck back. Or, in this case, _refuse_ to fuck back.

*****

_And thus man does not know the source of his_  
intelligence of primal notions and  
his tending toward desire's primal objects:

both are in you just as in bees there is  
the honey-making urge; such primal will  
deserves no praise, and it deserves no blame.  
~ Canto XVIII, lines 54-60 

“Perhaps you could tell me,” Benny asked as the two men in front of him stared at each other fiercely, “what in the actual Hell has rammed itself up both your asses today?”

He earned himself one hell of a pair of glares but he’d run out of give-a-damn after about an hour of their tense bullshit, seeing as how it had followed a week of tense bullshit. Benny felt something needed to be said.

“You,” he said, gesturing to Dean with a jerk of his chin, “are about as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, and Hot Wings here is exhibiting classic symptoms of a desperate case of I Need a Good Knob-Polishing Disease. Clearly, I am missing something that maybe you gentlemen would like to clue me in on?”

Castiel’s grimace faded a touch as he tried to hide his bafflement at Benny’s statement. 

“Oh, dear,” the vampire said slowly and with relish, “hasn’t your babysitter given you a lesson in the birds and the bees yet?”

He chuckled as the expressions in the angel’s face warred between confusion and the suspicion that he should be offended. Castiel glanced to Dean for translation.

Without taking his ferocious glower away from Benny’s face, Dean said, “Cas, he’s saying that you desperately need to act out one of those Pizza Man movies but wouldn’t know what to do.”

The angel directed his glare back at Benny, certain of his offense now; he gave a little huff.

“For your information, I was married for nearly seven months; I am adequately educated in that regard,” Castiel said with a haughty tip of his chin, missing Dean’s startled expression. The angel’s face then flickered to something much more pensive. “The assumption regarding our roles in the scenario seem reversed, however. Given his sexual history in comparison to mine, Dean would be more likely to be the Pizza Man; I would be more plausible as the inexperienced babysitter.”

_“Cas!”_  
  
Dean couldn’t stop himself from bellowing to shut the angel up, his cheeks heating in embarrassment as Benny guffawed.  
“Jesus, Cas, do you have _no_ idea what it sounds like when you say that shit? What are you, freakin’ twelve?”

The expression on the angel’s face turned thunderous, and he stalked up to the hunter, eyes flashing with self-righteous anger.

“I was a soldier of God for _millennia_ before humans even existed!” Castiel spit back.

“Yeah? Well, that doesn’t seem to stop you from being a damn child when it comes to some things!”

His human friend seem determined to give as good as he got, but when the angel scowled up at the hunter from barely inches away, something cracked in the hunter’s facade. For a moment, Benny thought that he’d imagined it, but the angel seemed to notice it, too. Never dragging his eyes away from Dean’s, Cas tipped his head to the side and his face melted into something more quizzical. Whatever Castiel saw in Dean’s expression – and Benny would be damned if he could tell – caused the angel’s brows to veer upwards and the hunter’s cheeks to redden before he jerked both his eyes and his body away. Dean mumbled something practically unintelligible and started to push past Benny to continue along their pre-established path.

Given that when Benny snorted in amusement as Dean passed and was rewarded with a grimace that could take down a water buffalo, the vampire did his best to suppress a smile before gesturing that the angel follow after Dean. Whatever hornets’ nest he’d managed to unintentionally stir up between the two men just then, Benny was fairly certain it would have some damn amusing consequences before this whole episode played out.


	6. The Fifth Terrace: The Covetous

**Chapter Five – The Fifth Terrace: The Covetous**

 

_What avarice enacts is here declared_  
in the purgation of converted souls;  
the mountain has no punishment more bitter. 

_Just as we did not lift our eyes on high  
but set our sight on earthly things instead,  
so justice here impels our eyes toward earth._  
~ Canto XIX, lines 115-120

 

“You know,” Benny said, a tiny grimace directed at the scowling angel, “you’re an awful greedy bastard for someone who comes straight from the Crusade Brigade.”

He couldn’t help but shake his head when the angel cantered up from his place at the back of their group to not-so-subtly situate himself between Benny and the hunter he’d been jibing. At first, the angel’s obvious partiality for his human charge – and the resulting consequence of a celestial being acting like a neglected prom date – had been amusing, but after months of this nonsense, his tolerance was wearing thin. The vampire had not missed the obvious shift in dynamic between the two of them over the course of the last week or so, this time on Dean’s part rather than the angel’s. Something was different; something made the hunter smell different. But it was the tinge of yearning in the angel’s eyes giving way to passive-aggressive jealousy that made Benny unable to bite down on his temper for another moment.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” the angel growled in response.

The hunter sighed heavily and swiped his non-weapon hand over his face. “Not this again. Guys, honestly—”

Benny stopped moving all together and squared off against the annoyed seraph, a tiny quirk of a grin on his lips.

“It just kills you that he actually enjoys my company, doesn’t it?” 

Before Castiel could answer, Benny continued, his grin becoming a leer. 

“He values someone other than you and that just gets at you like an itch you can’t scratch. You have just gotten so accustomed to having no one but you and his brother actually matter to him that it completely burns your biscuits that he gives a damn what I think. Doesn’t it?”

Benny could see the twitch in the angel’s jaw that signaled a massive effort to keep from rising to the bait that he offered.

“Angels do not bow to the level of jealousy,” Castiel said with a heavy sniff, directing a glare at Dean when he snorted in caustic amusement.

Benny chuckled. “Please. You may be the first member of the Upstairs Team that I’ve met in the flesh, but don’t think we don’t hear things down here, Doe Eyes. I know exactly who you are and what you’ve done. Don’t forget: I was one of the souls you swallowed when you popped the top off the box.”

At least the angel had the good grace to look ashamed at that remark.

“I agreed to come after you simply because he refused to leave without you,” Benny jerked his thumb towards the hunter. “Seemed to think you were _better_ than those jack asses who’ve spent eons condemning and killing people for their faith – or lack thereof – in arbitrary virtues and then have the nerve to call me a monster. Imagine my surprise.” 

Benny hadn’t missed the shock on Dean’s face as he spoke. In fact, the hunter even managed to look a bit embarrassed, as if he had been trying to hide Castiel’s previous poor behavior from his new friend. Much to Benny’s astonishment, the angel seemed to find it much easier not to rise to the inducement this time. In fact, the self-righteous bastard had the nerve to fix him with a tiny, steely smile.

“You forget,” the angel rumbled in that voice that didn’t match his lithe, athletic frame, “I am Fallen. I am no longer Heaven’s virtuous son and have not been for some time now. I am the Prodigal. I only continue to exist because my Father chooses to keep raising me, for reasons incomprehensible to any but Him. Especially to me.”

At this, Dean stunned both of them by giving a hearty chuckle. “Cas pictures himself as Heaven’s Naughtiest Angel, I think. Makes him feel brave.”

There was an odd sort of fondness in his voice, Benny noticed, when the hunter spoke those words. Hot Wings, on the other hand, let his face drop to complete blankness, his features incongruously hard and cold.

“Do you know how many angels have ever had the courage to formally rebel and fall from Heaven, Dean? Oh, Lucifer had followers who were cast down with him,” the angel said in a strangely conversational tone, “but do you know how many angels have had the fortitude to formally speak up, speak out against Heaven, and commit a direct act of rebellion?”

A strange tension, like lightning, crackled in the air as the angel spoke, striding the short distance between himself and the hunter and glaring up into green eyes with a resolute gaze.

“Do you, Dean?”

The hunter mutely shook his head, his jaw dropping just a minute amount as he stared down into the seraph’s fixed gaze.

"Three: Lucifer, Anna, and me. I am one of only three angels in all of history to have the nerve to stand against the entire force of Heaven and say ‘No’.” The angel allowed a moment of taut silence to pass before adding, “It does not make me _feel_ brave, Dean. I _am_ brave. And I would ask you to remember why I Fell in the first place.” 

Obviously pleased with himself, the angel spun on his heel and marched away into the undergrowth, calling back to the two of them that he would start searching for a space to rest for the evening. Dean stood stock still for several long moments, watching the angel go and seemingly unable to force himself to respond to what had just happened. 

Benny watched his friend in silence for nearly a minute, inspecting the way the man’s face melted from one expression to another as he stared off after the angel but Benny definitely did not miss something buried at the back of the hunter’s wary eyes. Something that he’d seen plenty of times before, something which hinted at – but didn’t quite explain – the change in the hunter’s smell these past few days. Benny had thought it was the hunter being on high alert for a fight – smelling of adrenaline and testosterone and fear – but now he suspected something different. And since the angel had been gone a minute or two, Benny felt safe testing the waters, as it were, when Dean jerkily started moving again.

“You know, brother, you’d probably both feel a lot better if you just gave the man the good old-fashioned rutting he clearly wants from you.”

Benny had to thrust out an arm, grabbing his friend’s bicep to keep him from tumbling to the ground. He might never call the hunter “graceful” – the man was too much solid muscle and brutal attack for such a delicate word – but Benny had never seen him uncoordinated. Yet just the suggestion of awareness of the tension between him and the angel was enough to have Dean losing focus, hooking his ankle on a very visible tree branch, and nearly taking a header into the underbrush. The vampire just swung out, seized the hunter’s arm, and pulled him back to his feet, all the while keeping his face as steady as he could.

“Problem, chief?”

The hunter flailed, both physically and verbally, in response, nearly taking out Benny’s left eye as he gesticulated with his weapon.

“I don’t—I’m not—don’t know what you’re—and I mean, Cas isn’t—he doesn’t—”

Benny just ignored the protestations and pushed the hunter on down their path.

“Look, I get it. I do,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I was raised in a society that don’t look too kindly on two men feeling that way about each other—” 

“Look, I think you have it wrong here—”

“—and I know that it’s all part of your image and insecurity. Diving between the thighs of all these women is just another way of drowning in drink to avoid how you feel. Not that I don’t think you enjoy the women,” he added with a smirk that only partially stemmed the tide of Dean’s babbling, “but I think that the possibility of what you feel for the angel scares the hell out of you because it’s not the sex you’re afraid of, is it, brother? I mean, sex is just sex, and I’d bet my eye teeth that most of what you’d do with a man, you’ve already done with a woman.”

Benny doesn’t pause for a response as they continue on towards where the angel headed, but he does note that Dean has gone suspiciously quiet.

“No, sex doesn’t scare you. It’s the fact that it’s not just sex, isn’t it? You’re terrified that the sex would prove to you that there’s something else there, some … bond,” he notices Dean resumes babbling a bit at that word, “between the two of you, and that’s harder to deal with. Because it’s really that you’re afraid of situations you can’t control, isn’t it? You lose the people you love because of how you live, and you’ve already lost him enough for several lifetimes. That’s what really scares you, Dean. You know it; I know it. The funny thing is, I don’t think _the angel_ knows it. 

“He thinks it’s just the women. He thinks that it’s that you don’t feel ‘that way’ about him because he’s not a woman. Or maybe he just thinks you don’t feel that way about him at all, _can’t_ feel that way about him. I don’t know. But the most ridiculous part about it is that anyone with eyes can see it, from _both_ of you. The way he looks at you like he’s jealous of every single moment that you’ve spent out of his eye sight, the way you look at him like you think it’s impossible for someone to be so fucked up and so perfect at the same time and what’s he doing around someone like you. And you never quite manage to see it in the other one, do you? How much you want each other.”

The vampire watched from his peripheral vision as shock, hope, fear, and disbelief all chased each other around the lines of the hunter’s dirty, bloody face. Eventually, his human friend managed to cobble together some sort of counter-statement.

“But Cas isn’t—he doesn’t … I mean, he doesn’t think that way. Feel like that,” Dean argued weakly. “He doesn’t have those kinds of feelings.”

“No? He must have mustered up some from somewhere, considering how determined he was to tell us about that wife he had. I’d say he has those kind of feelings far more than you know, brother. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t know how to process those feelings, or maybe he’s just scared of them. But he has them, I guarantee you that. You just can’t – or won’t – see it.”

“But … he’s an _angel.”_

“Mmm,” Benny hummed in agreement. “But when he’s in that meat suit, he’s also a man. And I’m guessing that just because he don’t _need_ to feel the urges men feel don’t mean he _can’t_ feel them.”

“But—” Dean started but Benny had gotten just frustrated enough to nip the argument in the bud.

The vampire turned to face his human friend, hooking one tine of his weapon around the man’s forearm, just strongly enough to pull him close and force him to look Benny in the eye.

“I’m telling you, brother, that he may not be full-blood human like you are, but those are the eyes of a man who’s just about made his mind up to ‘go native’; he just needs a door to walk through. I suggest that you give a good long think towards whether or not you want to be the one to open the door for him.”

Benny strode forward, off toward where he could see the angel in the distance, circling a promising clearing in the trees, leaving the bewildered hunter alone with his thoughts.

*****

_O, Avarice, my house is now your captive;  
It traffics in the flesh of its own children.  
What more is left for you to do to us? _  
~Canto XX, lines 81-84

 

Castiel kept his eyes on Dean’s back as they swept through the clearing, eyes scanning this way and that for any signs that an attack may be coming. The hunter had been suspiciously silent for the last hour or so, and now that the party had stopped for the oncoming dark hours, Castiel had noticed that the silence had become tension in his shoulders and neck. Pursing his lips, Castiel weighed the potential merits of trying to prod Dean into talking about whatever was bothering him, but in the end decided against it. He knew from experience that goading the elder Winchester into a discussion about emotions had disastrous results. The best approach would be to wait until his friend decided to open up. Castiel didn’t have to wait long. 

As the three of them rounded a small gap in a stand of trees to make sure it was easily defensible, Dean finally spoke up. “So you really got ‘Biblical’ with that fundie chick you were married to, huh?” 

Castiel raised an eyebrow. His friend aimed at a joking tone of voice, but a note of something harder lingered behind it. “If you are referring to sexual intimacy, then yes,” he said flatly.

Dean scoffed a bit as he sat down on a stump, rolling his shoulders to stretch the heavy muscles. When Castiel directed a dark glare at him, the hunter spread his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

“Well, it’s kind of a waste, don’t you think?” Dean asked. “I mean, you save it up all that angelic repression for how many thousands of years—” 

“Hundreds of thousands, actually,” Castiel responded, scowling further.

“—and then you just randomly bang some chick because she pulled you out of a lake like a rescue dog?” Dean finished, his joking tone slipping away completely. “It doesn’t seem very ‘you’, Cas. It just seems like you sort of wasted it.”

Castiel tipped his head to the side and pinned the hunter with a challenging gaze. “And would you say that you ‘wasted’ all your sexual intimacy on the scores of ‘random’ women _you’ve_ slept with?”

“Hey now,” Dean said, stiffening and grimacing as Benny laughed nearby. “ ‘Scores’ is a bit harsh.”

When Castiel mutely raised an eyebrow, Dean gave a reluctant shrug of his shoulders.

“Not entirely inaccurate,” he admitted, “but still, that’s different.”

“No, it’s hypocritical.”

“No, it isn’t. You’re different than me.” Dean’s eyebrows drew together over his bright green eyes.

“Why?” the angel persisted, unable to let the issue drop, though why he felt so determined to argue, Castiel couldn’t be entirely sure. 

“Because,” Dean said, flushed with angry determination, “because sex – especially when it’s your first time – isn’t something that should be thrown away. It should be special.”

Something in the hunter’s tone rankled Castiel’s nerves to the point that he found himself spitting back a barbed reply. “You are not a qualified person to pass such judgment, Dean.” 

The hunter leapt to his feet and charged down the angel before he even realized he was moving. Jabbing his pointer finger into the shorter man’s chest, Dean stared down his friend.

“You know, I may have had a lot of sex in my life and it’s not always ‘making love’, but I don’t apologize for it for two reasons: first of all, I never have sex without thought. The women I sleep with, I sleep with because I want to and they want to and it’s fun and hot and sometimes you just need a good lay. And I don’t see why there’s anything wrong with that because I’m an adult, God damn it, and I can make those choices. But I never have sex indiscriminately. I do it for a reason and I do it after thinking about it and thinking about the woman. I don’t have sex with just anybody, I don’t make stupid choices like having sex without protection, and I don’t throw those choices away. Secondly, I don’t apologize for my sexual history because my first experience with sex is what made me love it so much—”

Castiel grumbled, flailing his hands in angry impotent gestures as he spoke. “Yes, I’m sure you were sixteen and she was thirty-two, you were an animal, and she declared it the best night of her life—”

“Hell no,” Dean retorted. He glared at Castiel as he growled an explanation. “We were both fourteen-and-a-half, her name was Rhiannon Lattimer, and she was plain and shy and the sweetest person I’d ever met. She said I had eyes like spring grass and she was the only one in that whole school that didn’t treat me like I was a moron just because I wasn’t smart like Sammy.”

Castiel’s mouth dropped open, his lips working to form words he never managed to say. Dean barely noticed, his face directed towards the other man but his eyes lost in a sea of memory. 

“—and she didn’t care that I didn’t know what I was doing or that I was fumbly as hell or that my palms were sweaty. She even pretended that it didn’t hurt, even though she had a tear in one eye. She just put her arms around my shoulders, kissed me like it was the most amazing thing that could ever have happened to her, and when it was over, she said she’d never forget me because I was the boy with the spring grass eyes that made her feel like summertime. She tasted like cherry bubblegum and smelled like lilacs….”

Castiel watched Dean blink a few times as he resurfaced from the recollection. The hunter’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the astonishment on the angel’s face, but he continued to stare Castiel down as he worked his throat around the break in his voice.

“So yeah, maybe I’ve got a checkered past, but I don’t regret _any_ of it. Whatever my sex life is, I own every choice from top to bottom. And whatever my sex life became afterwards, it started with a quiet girl who smelled like lilacs. And maybe I wasn’t the forever kind of in love with her, but she made sex feel like this amazing thing ….” 

The angel waited for more but it didn’t come. Dean seemed to have realized that he had tipped his hand too far, let too many of his inner thoughts out; the vulnerability was quickly capped and stowed away as he marched back to the stump and plopped down upon it.

“Despite common opinion, I’m not an animal. I _am_ capable of higher thought and having sex for reasons other than mindless lust, you know.”

Castiel carefully picked his way over to where his friend sat staring sullenly at the ground. He lowered himself to the forest floor beside Dean and gazed up at the hard set of his jaw.

“Of course you are,” he murmured.

“My point, Cas,” Dean said with another clear of his throat, “is that _that’s_ the kind of experience you should have had. You’re too … _good_ not to.”

Castiel stared down at his folded hands resting on his crossed legs and digested this for a moment. Something ached in his chest at Dean’s words, not only because he had called Castiel “good” despite all of his faults and wrongdoings but because his friend consciously wished for him such a beautiful first sexual experience. After a moment, though, a small smile worked its way across Castiel’s face.

“That’s a nice sentiment, Dean, though slightly strange coming from someone who once tried to procure a prostitute to rid me of my virginity.”

Dean laughed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and knot his fingers together. “Yeah, well, that’s a special exception. We thought you were going to die in less than eight hours. We didn’t have time for sentimental bullshit.”

Castiel’s lips quirked up at the corners. “You assume, however, that my experience with Daphne was neither special nor pleasant. This is not the case.”

“I know, but … did you love her?” 

Something strange in Dean’s voice had Castiel quirking his head to the side to regard his friend’s face, determinedly kept in profile to the angel. Castiel hummed a bit as he considered the question.

“I believe I cared for her in whatever way I was capable at the time. She is a good person who, I believe, loved me. Or, at the very least, the man she believed me to be.” 

Castiel couldn’t stop his brows from pulling together as he frowned.

“I often regret that I left her with no word of my whereabouts, never to return. But,” he spread his hands in question, “how could I possibly explain even if I was to return? That, if nothing else, was the real waste of the situation. Our physical intimacy was a valuable and pleasurable experience.”

Dean just nodded and stayed silent. A confused, pained expression still lingered around the corners of the hunter’s eyes and mouth, so Castiel fished for something that might cheer him up. 

“In retrospect,” he began, “there was one part of the sexual experience that could have gone more smoothly.”

Dean grinned and looked at the angel with raised eyebrows.

Castiel flushed just a tiny bit, gazing down at his folded hands again. “It seems that the pornographic films that I viewed in your motel rooms are not the most accurate guideline for appropriate sexual conduct.”

A ringing moment of silence held between the two men before Dean burst out in gruff barks of laughter. The hunter’s whole body reeled with the force of his mirth, his wide palms slapping together in echoing claps as he let loose rolling waves of belly laughs.

“Holy shit, man,” Dean guffawed, “that’s the funniest damn thing I’ve ever heard. If _that_ is what you used for your standard of human sexuality, you probably shocked the shit out of that mousy little church lady. She probably either thought you were the scariest perv on the planet or literally God’s gift to her sex life.”

Castiel couldn’t help a tiny smile as Dean continued to chuckle. “She did seem somewhat … surprised.”

This set off another cascade of laughter. Castiel tried to hold onto a peeved expression – protesting “how was I to know that spanking someone isn’t normal sexual protocol?” – but couldn’t keep it still as Dean clapped a hand on the angel’s back. As Dean’s chuckles faded to just a smile, Castiel tipped a questioning expression to the man as he studied Castiel’s face.

“It’s just … weird,” Dean said after a moment. “Thinking of you … you know ….”

“Engaging in sexual activity?” Castiel supplied, raising his eyebrows at his friend’s sudden discomfort. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “I guess I just got used to the idea of you as Nerdy Winged Virgin. It just seems weird to think of you having sex with somebody that isn’t—”

Dean’s sentence ground to an abrupt halt, and the hunter quickly directed his gaze off into the trees.

“Isn’t …?” Castiel prodded when Dean just alternated between gazing at his hands and gazing at the trees.

“I don’t know. Isn’t … someone you care about. Like … _really_ care about.”

Dean’s voice creaked a bit and a light pink blush stained his cheeks. Something about the words played false in Castiel’s ears. They weren’t what the hunter had originally intended to say, he was sure of it. Dean chanced a quick glance at Castiel, but something in that gaze made his friend suddenly nervous. Castiel’s heart began to thunder within his chest in that brief glimpse; several swallows that jerked his Adam’s apple and Castiel’s throat still felt parched, as if he’d gulped a handful of desert sand.

“Dean?” Castiel asked. 

When the hunter stared resolutely into the trees, clearly trying to ignore both the angel and his own unexpectedly-restless fingers, Castiel raised a hand and placed it on Dean’s chin so that he could turn the hunter to look him in the eye.

“Dean, you sound as if you’re … jealous,” the angel said in a low voice.

The hunter jerked as if Castiel had slapped him with the words. 

“What?! No!” Dean practically yelped. “Of course I’m not!” 

Dean jumped up to his feet and backed away from Castiel a bit, stumbling over a downed branch. A moment of manic energy suffused the hunter as he glanced around, searching for Benny. When Dean realized that they were, surprisingly, alone in the clearing, he stopped pacing to scrub both trembling hands over his face and up to clutch into his hair. 

Castiel rose slowly, walking with soft tread, giving his anxious friend plenty of time to notice his approach. The angel stopped well short of what he knew would be Dean’s ‘personal space’ boundary, tipping his head and waiting for the man to settle himself. Once Dean looked up at Castiel again, his body calmer but his eyes still carrying a trace of fear, the angel calmly but deliberately stepped up only inches from his friend. He tilted his head and let his eyes lock onto the bright green ones above him. To the hunter’s credit, Dean evaded neither Castiel’s nearness nor his gaze despite the man’s discomfort.

“Dean,” Castiel said quietly, noting that the hunter twitched at his voice. 

He fell into silence for a short moment, perceiving the sudden increase in his friend’s respiration, the pounding of the vein at his throat.

“Dean,” he spoke again, “you sound jealous of the fact that I have had a lover.”

The statement hung suspended in the air between them before Dean let out a held breath.

“Maybe … maybe a bit,” he said slowly. “I guess I always just pictured you as this pure thing that wouldn’t have sex unless it ... it was ….”

Castiel let the question silently show on his face.

“With me,” Dean finished in a husky voice, not quite able to meet the angel’s eyes anymore.

Castiel gaze moved quickly across his friend – from the clenched fists at his sides to the quick breaths, to the clench of the muscles in his jaw. His vessel’s responses seemed to mirror Dean’s, his breaths becoming shallower, more rapid, his limbs suffused with nervous energy, his heart pounding.

“Dean,” he whispered, his voice rough, gravel against his sensitive tongue. “Dean, you say this as if you have … imagined our friendship evolving into a sexual relationship.”

The angel watched Dean’s eyelids flutter shut and his throat work as he swallowed several times in rapid succession. Castiel’s hands itched as they clutched at the ragged folds of his trench coat, longing to tangle them in the worn leather of Dean’s jacket to pull the hunter closer and yet, not daring to make such a bold move. Castiel’s throat clenched, his heart seemed to bounce against his ribs as he watched Dean take deliberate breaths that inflated the man’s chest until it seemed fit to burst.

“I don’t … I don’t think …” Dean stammered in a breaking voice. “I don’t think I ever really thought about it that hard. I didn’t really consider the reaction. I just knew that when you said you had slept with her, my brain went, ‘Hey! I was supposed to be first!’ I don’t ….”

Dean stuttered to a stop as he opened his eyes and looked down at Castiel. For a long moment, they just gazed into each other’s eyes. Castiel was transfixed by the play of light within the green orbs, flashing gold wherever light kissed them. He found a curious tingling spreading like wildfire throughout his body, concentrating low in his belly. When the tingling grew to a heat that Castiel suddenly recognized, he snapped his gaze away from the hunter’s and drew in a sharp gasp of surprise, causing his chest to bump against Dean’s. He must have wobbled on his feet because Dean thrust out a quick hand to wrap around Castiel’s bicep, steadying him. Castiel felt his shirt snag against the zipper of Dean’s jacket; he stared at it until he felt the heat of the hunter’s gaze on his face. Dragging his attention upward, Castiel allowed his eyes to meet Dean’s once again.

Whatever the hunter saw in Castiel’s expression caused him to pant out a few shaky breaths before finishing his sentence. “I don’t really know what that means.”

Castiel gave an unsteady laugh. “It means that we’ve been wasting time, Dean.”

It seemed to take a moment for the meaning of his statement to descend upon Dean. When it did, Dean’s hand closed around Castiel’s bicep to an almost punishing grip and then released just as quickly. 

“Cas, I—” Dean started to say but trailed away to nothing. 

The angel watched at least twenty emotions chase themselves across Dean’s blunt features before he settled on insecurity and fear. Dean took a faltering step backward.

“I should … go see if Benny needs help scanning the perimeter,” Dean concluded.

The hunter winced at his own remark but when his brows drew together in pain and confusion, Castiel took pity on him and offered a mute nod.

“Wasting time,” he muttered to himself as he watched the hunter stalk away into the trees, his shoulders low and tense under the thick leather jacket.

*****

_[these] words serve as answer to our prayers as long  
as it is day; but when night falls, then we  
recite examples that are contrary. _  
~ Canto XX, lines 103-105

 

Dean stalked around the clearing, running a circle opposite to Benny’s, using the hand not gripping his weapon to card through his hair. Every now and then, the panic boiled high enough to have him grip the short, dirty-blonde strands in punishing grip, stopping his restless circling long enough to let out a frustrated grunt. There weren’t many things that could rattle Dean hard enough that he couldn’t either bury them or burn through them, but whatever the hell this was going on with Cas … it was more than enough to say he was sufficiently rattled.

Okay, so Dean could admit to himself that his relationship with Cas had never been exactly “normal”, whatever the hell that meant. He didn’t have a _lot_ of friends – he never had, really – but the ones he did have, he knew that this thing with Cas was and had always been different. The stares, the personal space issues, the reckless need to justify themselves to the other person, the ruthless devotion that seemed to go down to his bones … even further with Cas. Hell, that angel had done things for him that he wouldn’t even ask of Sammy, and while many of those actions were misguided, Dean couldn’t pretend that he didn’t see the intent behind them. And it all seemed to add up to one thing: there was something else between him and Cas than just the friendship that they both called their “bond”.

Only … Dean was just starting to realize that it was also more than the “family” that he called it, too. Sure, Dean had gone to Hell and back – literally – for Sam, but … well, assuming that Benny’s source was right about this supernatural elevator back to Earth, Dean could have been home hale and hearty months ago. If he hadn’t been looking for Cas. And yet, it hadn’t ever really occurred to him _not_ to go after Cas. Even now, the idea of jumping ship and going home without the angel made his stomach turn and his chest seize up in dread and sadness. He’d spent most of his time in Purgatory telling himself that it was because Cas was his friend, damn it, his _best_ friend; and since Dean didn’t have all that many friends, he needed to protect the ones he had. Because that was just the way he worked: Dean protected the people he lo—

And that thought stopped him dead in his tracks. He couldn’t even finish it. But that was what this was all really about, wasn’t it? The way he felt about Cas? And it was more than just friendship, hell it was even more than feeling like family, because he’d sure as fuck never had a crisis of conscience over Bobby or Ellen or Jo. He felt something for Cas, something he hadn’t ever felt for anyone. Not the way he felt it about Cas. And that was what had made him bolt away from the angel earlier.

As much as he hated being a fucking coward, this sort of Hallmark bullshit was far from Dean’s strong suit at the best of times, and this was _Cas_. It was more than just him being a dude, or an angel … maybe because he was both of those things, and Dean just didn’t know what the fuck to do with that. He couldn’t name it, he couldn’t control it, he couldn’t even fucking hold on to whatever the hell he was feeling, and he felt like if he let go with both hands then whatever the fuck it was would pull him under.

Dean looked up from where he had started to slowly orbit the clearing again and caught sight of Cas as he traversed the inner circle empty of trees. Watching the angel as he moved about the space, eyes closed, palms gently raised as he mumbled something in a language Dean could neither hear nor understand, Dean felt struck to the core. Whatever it was that pulled at him, pulled him towards this being, felt like it was anchored behind his heart and he needed to either just let go and be reeled in or swing out a knife and cut the rope altogether. Every single fear and years of training told him it would be safer just to cut bait; he could easily say or do something just dismissive and cruel enough to make it clear to Cas that the line was drawn between them, and no matter what other instincts Dean had, he wouldn’t step across. 

He couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

Instead, he watched the angel saying prayers and laying whatever protection he could upon the space where Dean would eventually return to sleep and Dean thought about what Cas had said. Waste, he had said, and it seemed to sum up so many sins in their relationship. Misreading and ignoring all those tugs and pulls between them over all the years they had known each other. Rationalizing away the swoops in his stomach and heat in his chest when Cas had fixed him with that penetrating stare that seemed to know every inch of his heart. Laughing off the comments about Cas being in love with Dean, made by pretty much every person or creature that had ever seen the two of them interact. Working against each other out of fear and insecurity simply to fight the fear of being a burden or being abandoned by the other. Holding on to those feelings of betrayal and bitter anger because they had been working at cross purposes and neither had possessed the courage to simply open his freaking mouth and ask for help. Or forgiveness. Fighting what he had felt since the instant he saw Cas next to that stream, dirty and battered but alive, feeling the fear and desperation that seemed sewed into his muscles melt away and leave nothing but watery relief and sharp, clear joy. Dean couldn’t help but think that maybe Cas was right: maybe all of this, ever since the first time they locked eyes on each other outside of Hell, was just wasting time until one of them got the nerve to admit what was really going on. But … could he really do it? Could he really let all that shit go and just … step over the line? Dean didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he had the courage. 

He watched Cas settled against a tree, wordlessly removing his coat and folding it in his lap, a waiting pillow for Dean’s head even though it had been several days since Dean had asked for that favor from Cas. It didn’t occur to the angel not to offer it, even if Dean never asked for it again. Then Dean dared to ask himself a question he hadn’t been wanting to face, one that he had staunchly refused to even admit could have any answer other than the one he wanted…. What would happen if Cas was right, that the portal back to Earth wouldn’t work for him? What if Dean crash-landed back at home, without the one person he had scoured all of Monster Land to find? Would Dean feel like he had done the right thing, capping back all these feelings and instincts, knowing that he couldn’t ever act on them even if he wanted to? Or would he spend the rest of eternity regretting that he had wasted the time in front of him? Time he would never get back.

He wasn’t conscious of making the decision to move, but before he even realized that the thought had entered his head, Dean found himself standing over Cas as he gazed fixedly into the trees opposite where he sat. The angel didn’t look up as the hunter stood over him, just gazed into the forest, where Dean could hear Benny moving through the undergrowth, with a deep crease between his furrowed brows. 

“Something unsettling is moving out in the trees tonight,” Cas said, never taking his sharp, darting eyes off of the shadow-laden trees being swallowed by darkness. “Something more than just your blood-sucking friend.”

Dean just nodded, unsure of what to say in response. All of the words that had clogged his throat for the past hour lodged themselves behind his voice box, unwilling to come out. At a loss for anything else to do, he simply folded his long legs beneath him and perched on the ground next to his friend. 

Castiel finally broke his heavy gaze on the forest and turned to Dean. His face held the same inscrutable expression it had perfected on the day Dean met him. 

“Sleep,” Cas said eventually, a soft rumble of noise. “I will watch over you.”

Dean opened his mouth but found himself unable to think of a way to broach the subject chasing around his head, so he just nodded and began to settle down. Once he’d taken off his jacket and folded it up as a pillow, Dean froze with his head halfway to the beaten leather. 

“Cas,” he started, but his voice broke a bit and he had to clear it before continuing. “Cas, would you … I thought it might help me sleep if you … stayed here with me.”

Cas tilted his head questioningly but gestured silently to the folded trench coat in his lap.

Dean propped himself up on an elbow and shook his head, ignoring the flush rising on his cheeks. “No, I … I mean, I wondered if you might lay down. Here. With me. I know you don’t need to sleep,” Dean said hurriedly when the angel raised an eyebrow in mute surprise, “but I thought, I don’t know, can’t you guys meditate or something?”

Cas’s face was once again studiedly blank. “Yes,” was all he said in response.

“I just … you know, I thought it might help to have you next to me while I sleep. You know … if you don’t mind.”

There was a moment of silence where Cas just studied Dean’s face – another one of those intense moments where Dean felt the angel could peer into his brain – before he simply said, “Of course, Dean,” as if it were the most natural and common place request that his friend had ever asked of him.

Dean felt that stingy zip of nervousness as his friend laid down next to him; stupid, really, because the angel did it without comment or hesitation. Cas simply unfolded his lean body next to Dean’s, transferring the trench coat from his lap to under his head, resting his slender arms on the ground next to him on either side. Unable to resist a small smile – Cas somehow managed to make even _sleeping_ look stiff – Dean eventually dropped his head off his bent elbow and laid down on his back, staring up into the canopy of leaves overhead. He snuck a small glance back at Castiel, who had allowed his eyes to close and his face to fall slack. 

And if, when he settled back down against his coat, Dean chest loosened while listening to the slow, even breathing of his friend as the angel lay next to him, well, it was just because he felt safer when they can protect each other. Maybe he did feel a little thrill in his muscles when he realized that the heat from Cas’s body radiated all along his left side, where their bodies are almost close enough to touch. And maybe Dean’s arms fell to his side after a moment, and maybe that caused his left hand to cover Cas’s right as it rested on the ground next to him; Dean was just getting comfortable. And if his fingers happened to slip into the gaps between Cas’s when the angel moved his hand underneath Dean’s, it was obviously a complete coincidence. And okay, maybe Dean curled his fingers gently around the smooth digits in between his, and smiling a little when the angel’s fingers clasped his as well. Dean was just making up for lost time.


	7. The Sixth Terrace: The Gluttonous

**Chapter Six – The Sixth Terrace: The Gluttonous**

 

_But tell me (and, as friend, forgive me if_  
excessive candor lets my reins relax,  
and, as a friend, exchange your words with me):

_how was it that you found within your breast_  
a place for avarice, when you possessed  
the wisdom you had nurtured with such care?" 

_These words at first brought something of a smile  
to Statius; then he answered: "Every word  
you speak, to me is a dear sign of love. _  
~ Canto XXII, lines 19-27

 

There aren’t many things about Dean Winchester that Castiel would categorize as “subtle”, but those next few days and weeks gave him pause and compelled him to reconsider. The effect of Dean’s choice to initiate a more definite connection between them at night gave rise to a change in his daytime demeanor that may not have been obvious, but it certainly seemed instantaneous to Castiel. Such that he firmly believed that even Dean was not fully aware of the delicate shift in his behavior. Dean had always been a physical person in every sense of the term: his body was made up of solid muscle and brute strength, he attacked with force and stamina (rather than Sam’s speed and long reach), and more potently, his gestures of affection for his loved ones were always marked by gentle hands and actions of care rather than effusive declarations. As such, the signposts of his regard for someone often sailed right by the casual observer because Dean was a man who spoke through his body rather than his mouth. Castiel, however, noticed the change.

It was barely perceptible at first, a quiet slide into a more intimate way of relating to Castiel. A touch on the bicep to get his attention became warm fingers around his wrist. An elbow nudge to the side – coupled with Dean’s trademark quirk of lips – to reveal a touch of humor became the back of his hand against Castiel’s stomach. An open palm between his shoulder blades to check his health after a fight became both hands wrapped around his upper arms – just where Dean bore the print of his own hand – coupled with a searching gaze. Which eventually became one hand at his shoulder and the other wrapped around the back of his neck. The gradual shift to a greater familiarity over the course of several weeks might have been undetectable to most people, but not to Castiel. Every touch seemed a beacon to him, a sign of some fundamental change in the alchemy of his friend. Something that might indicate that he was not mistaken, that there was something there that was so very much more than friendship.

That claim was easier to believe at night. After the few first evenings of requesting Castiel’s presence at his side, Dean seemed to reconcile himself with the decision and simply operated on the assumption that he would not be sleeping alone. The hunter would remove his leather jacket as he descended to the ground, folding it into a longer shape than previously, with room enough to pillow two heads rather than just his own. Dean would stretch out at one side and silently wait for Castiel to settle on the other. For the first few evenings, Dean laid out on his back, staring blankly up into the canopy above, his face carefully blank, until Castiel rested beside him; only then would the creases born of anxiety and stress of the day relax and disappear from Dean’s face and he would allow his eyes to drop closed. Sometimes the hunter would murmur to Castiel as he calmed his vessel into a meditative state, softly babbling about memories of their shared experiences, postulating theories of what might be going on back on Earth. On the nights that Dean felt compelled to talk, Castiel simply listened, a quiet hum of breathing being his only noises as his friend used the anonymity of darkness to find the courage to eventually speak about his worries about Sam. Inevitably, those were the nights that propelled the shift in their dynamic, with Castiel resurfacing from his meditative state to find Dean curled around him, unconsciously seeking the comfort of his presence in sleep. 

The very first time he had “slept” next to Dean, it was just Castiel’s arm. Dean had rolled onto his side at some point during the night, and Castiel awoke to find his friend’s forehead pressed to the round of muscle at his shoulder, the hunter’s left arm wound around his with his hand clutching Castiel’s and his right hand clutching a fistful of shirt at the middle of Castiel’s chest. The sleeve of his scrubs fluttered lightly against his bicep with each of Dean’s measured breaths. Castiel turn his head as minutely as possible to try to gain a glimpse of the hunter’s face, trying to suss out whatever had motivated him to cling to the angel as if afraid he would evaporate as soon as the hunter closed his eyes. No answer presented itself as his friend’s face reflected the unlined reposed of sleep. Perhaps more than he had ever seen before, and that from several years of watching the man rest. Despite his position, Dean looked … content. Castiel raised his unoccupied hand from the ground, had it halfway to Dean’s cheek before he noticed the way it trembled so he let it fall back to the groundcover of leaves. Dean woke not long after and, upon realizing his rather telling body position, tightened his jaw, gave Castiel a single inscrutable look, then untangled himself and rose to begin his day as if the previous events were not at all unusual.

Not long after that, it became far more than just an arm. Dean’s long limbs twined around Castiel’s, his hands always clutching parts of Castiel’s clothing, as if to anchor the angel to his side to prevent him from leaving. One leg would be thrown across Castiel’s calves, a hot, heavy weight he could not escape, Dean’s hands grasping his clothes and his face pressed into the lean muscle at his shoulder. While his friend seemed to derive some comfort from the touch, the posture still suggested to Castiel that even his unconscious mind was distressed that Castiel would be lost. It took him nearly two weeks to figure out a way to alleviate that distress. When he finally realized that Dean seemed to be instinctively seeking reassurance through this physical connection, it only made sense to affirm the bond through reciprocation. The next time Castiel felt pulled from his meditation when Dean curled his limbs around Castiel’s body, the angel tentatively shifted a bit, wrapping his arm around Dean’s back and cradling Dean’s head in the inner pocket of his shoulder. The effect was immediate. Dean wriggled in his sleep, his right arm slithering across Castiel’s belly to disappear under his trench coat on the opposite side and splay an open palm up Castiel’s ribcage, Dean’s top leg curling around Castiel’s to insinuate his knee between both of the angel’s. Castiel hissed out a breath without really meaning to, his cheeks coloring as he felt the warm weight of Dean’s thigh pressing against his groin. When Castiel raised his other hand from the ground and hesitantly placed it on top of the arm that Dean had wound around him, the hunter nuzzled his face deeper into the folds of material covering Castiel’s chest and let loose a thick sigh before slipping deeper into sleep.

Castiel felt the flush on his cheeks deepen in those first few moments entangled in Dean’s embrace. He’d had no idea, really. The intimacy that could come from something so innocuous as sleep … suddenly, the years of Dean’s protests that it was “creepy” that he watched over Dean as the man slept began to piece together into something that made sense. It seemed so harmless, lying down for rest next to someone, but this … closeness, the vulnerability of being at repose only compounded how much of a human’s inner mind and heart could be revealed in sleep. No wonder Dean had seemed so discomfited by the request, by the possibility of laying his body next to Castiel’s for something as innocent as sleep. Every atom of his body that rested against Dean’s broadcasted a keen awareness of the hunter: the warmth of his body; the ever-present smell of leather and blood and gunpowder and something deeper, something earthier that was inherently Dean; the scratchy calluses on his palms and the sides of his fingers that bore the signs of constant use of weapons; the smoothness of the back of his hand underneath Castiel’s; the thick ropes of muscles in the thigh draped over Castiel’s hip; the heavy heft of his head on Castiel’s shoulder; the rasp of day-old stubble against Castiel’s dingy hospital shirt; the humid puffs of his breath against Castiel’s chest. Suddenly, it seemed like a much more courageous gesture for Dean to have asked to share this with Castiel. Suddenly, it seemed a much less innocent gesture for Castiel to have accepted without question, as it was becoming increasingly clear that he had not fully understood what Dean had been asking. And, much to Castiel’s wonder, it became increasingly clear as the nights stacked upon themselves that Castiel would not be able to remain as removed as he had expected, offering comfort but receiving nothing in turn.

Instead, Castiel found himself to be glutting on everything that Dean subconsciously offered up when his active mind gave way to rest. Perhaps he was able to seem disaffected and constant during daylight hours when Dean’s outward behavior remained as it always had been, but in the darkness when the hunter sought out Castiel’s comfort, Castiel’s body, the seraph found his resolve crumbling away under an avalanche of longing and gluttony. Every touch that Dean unknowingly offered with his body when his mind was tucked away, Castiel devoured readily. His mind and conscience battled with his judgment, insisting that what he accepted and fed on from Dean were merely unconscious expressions of insecurity from a man terrified of being abandoned. Shame picked at him during the day every time he looked upon Dean’s face, smeared with dirt and blood and bisected by the lines of anxiety and the stress of the journey across this barren place, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from gorging on the hunter’s touches at night, regardless of his stinging guilt.

It wasn’t until the fourth week of their new nightly routine that his friend unconsciously offered him the absolution he desired. The day had brought with it an unusual number of attacks, as if word had gotten out that the odd party was closing in on their goal and Purgatory was determined to keep them from accomplishing it. Somewhere near mid-afternoon, they nearly-literally stumbled upon an entire nest of vampires taking down a leviathan. When the five vampires succeeding in beheading the monster, they turned as a unit and snarled at Castiel, who had been cutting a swath through the trees in front of the group. 

Dean flew into action, shoving Castiel aside to charge at the vampires, his wicked scythe-like weapon barely sticking a moment as it cleaved through muscle and bone as he hacked away at his opponents. Dean did not notice, as Castiel had, that one of the combatants had been brought up short as she scanned their faces, her expression dropping into one of great surprise. The hunter didn’t register that the vampire called out his name, which caused Castiel to drop his hands and tilt his head to the side, taking only an instant to place her in his mind.

“Lenore,” he said in quiet surprise.

But Dean raged on, advancing and striking with brutal force, his expression murderous, his face set, practically snarling beneath the sheen of sweat cutting tracks though the dirt and blood on his face. He didn’t even seem to register that the petite female vampire wasn’t even attacking anymore, channeling all her strength just to evade the swift reach of his blade, calling his name in increasingly panicked shrill cries.

“Dean,” Castiel said, and couldn’t help but be stunned that his voice had no effect on the hunter’s single-minded determination to eliminate the perceived threat.

Benny stilled beside Castiel and watched, astonished, as Dean continued his assault. Lenore was tiring, directing all her attentions towards avoidance. This had to stop.

“Dean!” Castiel boomed, clasping a firm hand to his friend’s shoulder and grabbing his upper arm to stop the lethal swing of his blade. 

Only when the hunter’s arm jerked in its aborted path, held back in Castiel’s tight grip, did Dean visibly jar out of his trance and absorb the situation in front of him. Dean glanced from Lenore in front of him, cowering with her twitching hands still raised defensively in front of her, back over his shoulder to where Castiel regarded him with a furrowed brow and saddened gaze.

“It’s all right, Dean,” Castiel said in a calm, low voice. “She’s not going to hurt me. Let it go.”

For a moment, Dean just continued to glance between the two of them, his face gradually melting from tense anticipation to horror and shame. Dean lowered his weapon, arm twitching at his side, before opening his mouth. Castiel watched as Dean worked his jaw, trying to speak what was most likely an apology of some kind, but the hunter couldn’t seem to find words. His cheeks colored heavily as he directed one last guilty look over his shoulder at Castiel before pushing past Lenore to disappear through the trees. Castiel only hesitated for the moment it took him to pat Lenore gently on the shoulder before he followed his friend’s hasty retreat.

The rest of the daylight hours Castiel spent his time at an easy arm’s reach behind Dean’s left side, watching his friend carefully as the hunter stalked through the forest, his dominant hand clutching the handle of his weapon so tightly that the man’s knuckles whitened. Benny remained uncharacteristically silent as well, regarding Dean with a steady gaze that held what Castiel thought might be just the tiniest touch of pity. The burly vampire departed without a word when darkness descended upon the night’s makeshift camp site, casting the angel a potent look over his shoulder as he disappeared into the brush to make his rounds.

Dean settled on the ground as he always did, removing his coat and folding it for a pillow for both of their heads, but when he laid down for sleep, instead of stretching out on his back to wait for Castiel, the hunter turned away from him, curling onto his side and wrapping his arms around his heaving chest. Castiel scowled as he watched his friend, watched him quaver as he attempted to hold in sobs, clutching his crossed arms to his own chest and turning his face away towards the ground. Lowering himself to a crouch behind Dean, Castiel put out a hand to his friend’s shoulder.

“Dean?”

The hunter just sank further into his own misery. He didn’t shrug off Castiel’s hand, but he didn’t acknowledge it either. Unsure of how to comfort his friend, the seraph merely let his body ease down behind Dean’s, propped up on his right arm to try to gaze over the hunter’s shoulder at his face. Dean never turned towards the angel, but when Castiel moved his hand from Dean’s shoulder to the rigid fingers clutching at his ribcage, Dean let go of the abused fabric and clasped onto Castiel’s digits in a punishing grip. At somewhat of a loss as to what else to do, Castiel simply returned the grip and laid down behind his friend, his chest pressed against Dean’s hunched back. Once Castiel had settled his head on the soft leather of Dean’s coat, his friend’s grip gentled and, with shaking fingers, drew the angel’s arm forward until it wrapped around Dean’s body, Castiel’s hand drawn up between Dean’s own crossed limbs.

Castiel barely breathed in those moments after Dean willingly cloaked himself in the seraph’s embrace. The hunter seemed willing to accept the connection between the two of them when it was a silent request of his slumbering mind, but this was the first time Dean had consciously sought his comfort. Castiel gave it readily, squeezing his arm around his friend as tightly as he dared, and waited for Dean’s next move. He was sure there would be one. What he didn’t expect was Dean’s voice, muffled but the pain still evident.

“I’m one of them, Cas,” he moaned into the leaves and leather beneath his head. “I’ve become one of them. A mindless monster.”

“No,” Castiel responded immediately. When Dean’s breath hiccupped in his chest, he ground it out again, louder, _“No.”_

Dean didn’t respond, so Castiel raised himself up as much as he could without breaking Dean’s hold on his arm and placed his mouth near Dean’s ear.

“You are not a monster, Dean Winchester. You are a strong, brave man who has spent his life facing down monsters. You survived Hell. You will survive Purgatory. And you will do these things not because you are a monster, but because you have the fortitude to look monsters in the eye and refuse to allow their evil to best you. Any other man would run mad in this place, would have left me behind to save his own life. You have faced a never-ending onslaught of combat simply because you refuse to abandon someone a friend—” Castiel’s mouth pinched ruefully, “—whether that friend deserves such loyalty or not.”

“You are a warrior, Dean. I have seen thousands and thousands of years of warriors, and I can assure you that the life of a warrior leaves its scars on even the best of men. And you _are_ the best of men, Dean Winchester. You are not a monster.”

A long beat of silence passed before Castiel noticed the corners of Dean’s mouth twitch up just the tiniest bit.

“You know, Cas,” Dean said eventually, “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a crush on me.”

The angel _hmmph_ ed indignantly and dropped his head back to the jacket-pillow with a soft _whump_ of air escaping. He even scowled a bit for good measure when the hunter let loose a small, hoarse chuckle. But the hunter’s grip didn’t loosen on Castiel’s arm, so Castiel slowly, gently tipped his head forward and let his forehead rest against the juncture where the back of Dean’s neck met his shoulders. Castiel waited as Dean held very still for a moment, his chest inflating just a bit further as Castiel’s breath puffed warm against the spot between Dean’s shoulder blades. After two or three deep breaths, the hunter’s body relaxed and he burrowed further into the leaves beneath him, settling in for sleep. 

As the hunter’s muscles gradually went liquid with fatigue and repose, Castiel felt the gentle circling of Dean’s thumb on his upper arm, tracing a small arc against the skin just below the sleeve of his scrubs.

“Cas?” Dean murmured, his voice heavy with sleepiness.

“Hmmm?” he responded lowly, not wishing the break the spell that had descended upon them.

“ S’nice,” he mumbled. “Having you here like this. Feels nice. Comfortable. Like you’re supposed to fit.”

“Fit?” he queried, puzzled.

“With me,” Dean said, as if it were the most obvious statement in the world. 

Castiel stared down at the weave pattern of Dean’s shirt and didn’t respond. Eventually, the hunter’s breathing steadied itself as he slipped into slumber in Castiel’s embrace. Castiel didn’t retreat into his meditation that night, merely absorbed the sensations of the hunter resting in his arms, relishing the way they “fit”.

*****

_Virgil began: "Love that is kindled by_  
virtue, will, in another, find reply,  
as long as that love's flame appears without;

_so, from the time when Juvenal, descending_  
among us, in Hell's Limbo, had made plain  
the fondness that you felt for me, my own 

_benevolence toward you has been much richer  
than any ever given to a person_  
~Canto XXII, lines 10-18

 

If Dean wanted to be petty about the current mess he was in—and in his more frustrated moments, faulting someone else seemed like a great idea—he really could have kicked Benny’s ass for ever opening his damn mouth about Cas. Had Benny never brought up the whole door-opening, going-native shit, Dean could have very happily gone on his way pretending that this ‘bond’ he and Cas had was just a really, really intense friendship and that the nonsense that made up said friendship, like all the staring and personal-space crowding and ruthless devotion, was totally normal for two men who’d been through the crap they had. Except that Dean had known long before that conversation ever happened that what he shared with Cas wasn’t “normal” (whatever the hell that meant) in any sense of the word, any more than his relationship was Sam was what anyone would call “normal”. Dean had been father, mother, brother, fellow soldier – just to name a few – to Sam, so that relationship couldn’t possibly be summed up with one word: “brother”. And Cas? How do you have a regular, beers-and-barbecues-and-weekend-golf kind of relationship with someone who could tap his finger on your forehead and fix your entire body, someone who literally pulled your _soul_ out of _Hell_ , for fuck’s sake, and built your body back piece by piece? How do you even _find_ normal in that mess? So his relationship with Cas wasn’t “normal”. So-the-fuck-what?

Yeah, maybe Dean had always known that their ‘bond’ was about seventeen shades of screwed up, but Cas was his best friend. Whatever meat suit Cas was in, Dean knew that their relationship would probably be just as awkward-slash-powerful as it was now. Though, thank God that Cas wasn’t still riding around in Jimmy’s daughter, Claire; that would make his current crisis about 1000% more confusing and uncomfortable.

Now that Benny had shined a spotlight on the whole issue of potential attraction and/or sex, Dean had spent most days just trying to push aside any hint of personal crisis to focus on getting all of their asses the heck out of Monster Land. His lips quirked up a tiny bit as he watched the angel push through the brush ahead of them. Contrary to what Dean had expected, things with Cas had actually gotten better, less awkward even, since Dean had worked up the guts to ask Cas to sleep next to him. Cas seemed less irritable and Benny seemed to pick fewer fights with the angel. Dean was even sleeping better now that he wasn’t having nightmares about losing Cas or finding him dead. The beauty part of it was that Dean didn’t have to worry about what people who knew him would think or say if he looked at the angel a little too long or touched him a little too often. Benny had only ever known Dean as he is now, so he didn’t feel compelled to butch up and bury all his shit or cover everything with a smirk and a joke every time either one of them did something that insinuated there was a deeper connection between them. As much as Dean hated to admit it, as much as he wanted to get out of here and go home … there was something freeing about being able to feel however the fuck he wanted to about Cas and not worry about how it would play to an audience. Something about Purgatory allowed him to just be _Dean_ , unfiltered. Pure. Well … as pure as Dean Winchester ever got.

The liberation left him with a fairly fucking huge problem, though. Namely, it wasn’t just Dean’s heart that seemed to be warming to the idea of “something more” with Cas. Every time they laid down to sleep now, Dean curled onto his side away from Cas because when the angel wordlessly pressed close against his back and laced a lean arm around Dean’s ribcage, he couldn’t lie to himself that he felt nothing. No, his brain had started spinning out all the different ways that he could show Cas how to “go native”, and quite frankly, he’d never been so damn sexually frustrated in his life. Poor Cas was only trying to give Dean whatever consolation he thought his friend needed, not put the moves on Dean, for fuck’s sake. The whole thing had started out as a desperate plea for comfort from Cas after he’d nearly ganked a creature that had _never_ attempted to harm him, but after that …. Well, Benny was wrong about one thing: the idea of sex sure as Hell scared him in this particular instance. It annoyed Dean to have to admit even to himself that _anything_ sexual scared him, but this did. It wasn’t the sex itself, exactly – the only thing that gay dudes do that Dean hadn’t done with a girl would be sucking another guy off – but more that when it came to Cas, sex wouldn’t be “just sex” as Benny had said. It wasn’t just that it would be sex with a guy; it was that it would be sex with _Cas_. Dude’s a freaking _angel._ How could he even _think_ about doing the dirty with an angel, let alone, you know, actually _do_ it.

Of course, there was that time with Anna … but she’d been human – and female – at the time, so it hadn’t felt any different than any other woman he’d slept with.

And okay, there was Balthazar and his bragged-about ‘ménage a twelve’, and Dean had visual proof of Gabriel and his very active sex life (gross), though those two assholes probably weren’t the best examples of upright angelic morality. Though, given everything he’s done in the last few years, neither was Cas.

Jesus Christ, why did everything in Dean’s life have to be so fucking convoluted?

Before the gender of his partner of choice had ever been called into question, the issue of whether or not to have sex hadn’t been so damn difficult. The answer was almost always “yes” and Dean couldn’t remember ever having to be so worried about the consequences, because to Dean, “sex” and “consequences” used to just mean “wear a condom” and “don’t slobber during foreplay”. Even when he’d been with Cassie or Lisa, when the relationship itself had been complicated, the issue of sex never had been.

Maybe that was half of the problem. Sex had always come easy to Dean; getting it, doing it … he hadn’t been fussed about it since he was a teenager. Partly because he knew he was good at it and partly because, for him, sex was rarely tangled up in the sticky hurdles and even stickier emotional complications that most people tacked on to it. With Cas, though, the situation could end up being nothing _but_ complications. More than that, Dean didn’t even really know how to navigate a situation in which _not_ having sex was a main concern. He’d laid it out for Cas back when they’d come up against Famine: when he wanted sex, he went out and got it. Dean was “well-fed”, and he’d never found that to be a potential downside until now. Now it seemed to have made him into a poster-child for greediness. He watched Cas as he cast those ice blue eyes up to the sky, shielding Dean with his leaner body as he scanned the surrounding trees for something Dean could only guess at with his comparatively dull senses, and couldn’t help but feel like a glutton in comparison. Dean had described himself as “well-fed” back then; he’d never had trouble going after what he wanted, never had qualms about it. If he had a certain hunger, he tended the need.

But Cas …. Cas had spent thousands of years being pure in the most literal possible sense of the word, and then when he’d eventually actually indulged in an act that Dean performed as routinely as brushing his teeth, it was with a devout _wife_. And Dean couldn’t help but squirm when he thought of Cas implying, however vaguely, that the two of them had just been wasting time by not acting on their bond. Cas might not be pristine anymore, but being with Dean could only taint whatever goodness Cas had left in him, and the thought of it made Dean anxious in a way he couldn’t even really explain.

He’d never felt about anyone the way he’d come to realize he felt about Cas. At least, he didn’t think so, because he sure as shit hadn’t gone through anywhere near what he has for Cas with anyone else and come out of the other side of it with the relationship still intact. Having to walk away from Lisa and Ben with neither of them remembering him had been torture, it had torn him to pieces, but he had done it without hesitation. He’d known it was for the best, however it might hurt him to do it. The only time he’d ever been able to walk away from Cas was when he’d thought the angel dead. Even with Cas’s betrayals and faults and missteps stacked against him, Dean had almost as much trouble letting go of Cas as he would letting go of Sam. Hell, wasn’t that what this whole nightmare in Purgatory had been about?

But really, what the actual fuck did Dean think he would be able to give an angel? Cas was damaged goods now, no doubt – anyone who’d been through their shit would be – but every mistake Cas made had happened because he tried too hard to do the right thing. Dean felt like most of the smoke Cas blew up his ass about Dean being heroic and a warrior and saving people ended up being cancelled out by all the selfish, self-indulgent bullshit he did just feed his baser instincts. 

He couldn’t help the way it all chased around in his head as he dropped down to his jacket-pillow that night. Cas sidled up next him as he had every night for the last several weeks, waiting until Dean had rolled onto his side before slowly sliding his arm over Dean’s cotton-clad ribs. At first, Dean couldn’t bring himself to press Cas’s arm to his chest with his own as he had the last few nights. Really, why drag Cas down to his level by once again feeding Dean’s gluttonous need for sex? Especially if there was any possibility that Benny had been wrong, had read Cas wrong, and it really was just all about being a good friend.

“Dean?” 

Cas’s voice fell on his ear so close and so unexpected that it raised goose bumps on his neck. Worry thick in the angel’s voice, Cas stared at Dean as he clamped his eyes shut and bit at the inside corner of his bottom lip. When several seconds went by with no response from Dean, Cas started to pull back his arm.

Everything in Dean seemed to cry out all at once at the loss of the angel’s warm hand on his chest. That, if nothing else, telegraphed to Dean that this wasn’t just about the sexual tension between the two of them. Not for him. His body already felt cold without Cas’s soothing arm, and Dean realized with a jolt that what set Cas apart from all the women he’d ever cared about was that his feelings had developed in the opposite direction: they were purer, deeper, because they had started in his heart, and his body just started to reach out now because it had finally gotten on board. 

Dean stretched back swiftly and caught Cas’s wrist before it disappeared from his side into the folds of that stupid trench coat. Without wasting any more time, Dean gently tugged the angel’s arm back in place, relaxing into sleep only after he felt Cas’s steady breaths on the back of his neck.

*****

_And-there!-"Labia mea, Domine"  
was wept and sung and heard in such a manner  
that it gave birth to both delight and sorrow. _  
~Canto XXIII, lines 10-12

 

Being roused from meditation by Dean’s restless shifting had become second-nature over the past few weeks, and given Dean’s inexplicable upset before settling down to sleep that evening, Castiel was hardly surprised to be pulled to full awareness after only a few hours of calm. Reaching out with his senses, dulled somewhat by the fug of supernatural disturbance inherent in the darkness of Purgatory but still sharper than the rest of their party, the seraph scanned for signs of a threat lurking in the gloomy trees around them. Finding nothing, Castiel blinked his eyes open and regarded the man in front of him.

While he could detect nothing obviously wrong with Dean, Castiel felt certain that something was amiss. Still wrapped in Castiel’s arms, the hunter held himself unnaturally rigid, every muscle straining with the effort to keep still. His position had not changed, though, so Castiel could only surmise that this exertion served to keep his current position. Castiel couldn’t help feeling more than a tad bamboozled. Their physical proximity had increased slightly more than usual – with Dean’s knees bent and drawn up, Castiel needed to curl around him more than previous nights – but it didn’t differ so radically that it would explain his friend’s discomfort. Dean didn’t show any signs of emotional distress or nightmares; in fact, when Castiel pulled himself up on one elbow to examine Dean’s face, he found the hunter’s eyes open and staring fixedly at a spot far ahead of him in the forest.

Castiel finally gave up. “Dean?” he inquired quietly, his mouth close to the other man’s ear.

When the hunter said nothing, merely clamped his eyes shut and bit down on his lip, Castiel shimmied up a bit to get a better look at Dean’s pinched expression.

“What’s wrong?” Castiel began to ask, but as he did so, Dean shifted, and the action result in Castiel pulling in a lungful of air through his teeth in a hiss.

It took him a moment to process the reaction, to realize that the act of altering his position dragged the waistband of Dean’s jeans across what Castiel noted belatedly was a fairly prominent erection. An erection that had formerly been pressed tightly against the small of Dean’s back. Suddenly, Dean’s discomfort and determination to remain still made a great deal more sense.

“Dean, I’m sorry,” Castiel gabbled, his cheeks flushing as he scrambled to disentangle his arm from Dean’s. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” 

His words skittered to a halt when, contrary to every outcome he could have expected, Dean’s grip on his arm tautened, effectively trapping him against the other man’s body. After a long moment of silence broken only by the hunter’s measured, deliberate breathing, Castiel ventured, “Dean?”

Nervous energy suffused the air as Dean wordlessly moved to press Castiel’s open palm flat against his sternum. Castiel felt the fingers that ghosted over his own tremble as they slowly guided his palm down the slope of Dean’s chest. The jump of Castiel’s heart within his vessel seemed to synchronize with the hitch in Dean’s abdomen as their joined hands passed over the ridges of muscle beneath the cotton shirt. Dean’s back pushed against Castiel’s as he took a few more steady breaths. The action seemed to calm him because Dean managed to draw their tangle of digits past his waist until Castiel’s fingers bumped into then slid over the bulge straining beneath well-worn denim.

Castiel barely even registered the noisy gasp that left his mouth. He was, however, very aware of the hoarse groan that left Dean’s parted lips when Castiel closed his hand reflexively in surprise, slotting the hard length of flesh into his palm.

“Dean,” Castiel breathed, his voice audibly shocked.

The hunter responded by turning his head so that just the top of his cheek pressed against Castiel’s still poised above him and rocking his hips against the hand still loosely gripping his erection. Castiel couldn’t help furrowing his brow in bewilderment. After all the avoidance and protestations and jokes to the contrary, it seemed impossible to consider that Dean could possibly reciprocate any of the yearnings that nearly swallowed him whole.

And yet ….

If only to confirm that he had not misread or misinterpreted the situation somehow, Castiel pressed the heel of his hand down where Dean’s erection pulsed under his palm, rubbing and squeezing tentatively. The hunter rewarded him with a gruff exhalation of “Cas!”, Dean’s lips moving tantalizingly across the growth of beard covering Castiel’s jaw.

Every inch of his body took it in turns to ache and tingle with excitement. Castiel couldn’t even be certain of his ability to process all of the sensations tumbling across his nerves, but Dean’s response encouraged him so much that he tried again, this time with much more confidence, sliding the entire flat of his hand along the denim-covered bulge. Dean’s hips jerked against Castiel’s forearm, and the hunter released the angel’s hand to dart back and clasp a firm grip on the round of Castiel’s buttock. A languid roll of Dean’s hips, bringing him alternately forward against the hand at Dean’s front and then back to grind against Castiel’s erection pressed into Dean’s rear, had the angel letting loose a noise he wouldn’t have recognized as his own had he not felt it scrape its way out of his throat.

“Dean,” Castiel gasped, turning his face downward so that the corners of their lips brushed when he spoke. “Dean, I want—I want to please you. Tell me what to do ….”

The angel nearly sobbed when Dean’s hand left his rear but he shook with anticipation when a low rustle of fabric met his ears as Dean fumbled and rushed to open the fastenings of his pants. Dean grasped Castiel’s hand in his, pushing away jeans and underwear to close the angel’s fingers around his hot flesh in the still air. As Dean curled Castiel’s fist around the base of his erection, Castiel greedily swallowed each one of the hunter’s stuttering breaths as if he could survive on them alone. Following Dean’s practiced movements, they jointly stroked the hunter’s engorged length. Castiel caught the edge of Dean’s bottom lip between his teeth momentarily, savoring the gasp of breath and jerk of hips that accompanied the action.

Obeying Dean’s low mumbles of encouragement, Castiel’s pulse raced at each moan of “tighter”, “faster”, “twist at the top, _yes_!”; he let the exhilaration chase through his veins unchecked, whatever instinct lay dormant in his vessel bubbling to the surface to wash away any coherent thought. Overwhelmed, Castiel buried his face in the crook of Dean’s neck and inhaled deeply, pulling this man – his beloved human – into his lungs with each breath, surrendering to his borrowed body’s demands. His hips rolled against the swell of Dean’s rear, trying desperately to achieve some sort of relief for his aching erection. Dean’s fingers slipped from Castiel’s to reclaim their hold on the angel’s buttock, urging him closer to the hunter’s body.

Castiel reveled in Dean’s quick descent from muttered directions to wordless, needy gasps as the seraph matched the tight down-stroke of his hand to the forward snap of his hips. Abruptly, Dean jerked in Castiel’s arms, his muscles clenching as he quaked with the force of his orgasm. Dean’s throat closed around a moan, body spasming, his grip bruising-tight on Castiel’s hip. After a moment of stillness, Dean urged him back to the rough buck of his groin against Dean’s body.

Castiel caught Dean’s eyes, bright and lamp-like in the darkness, as the taller man craned his neck to watch him, devouring the expressions of astonishment and desire that painted the angel’s face. He thrust helplessly against Dean, hearing the man utter the three syllables of his full name with more tenderness and reverence than any prayer that Castiel had ever witnessed. Hearing his name fall from Dean’s lips with such ardor, the seraph felt as if he stood in a cathedral where every bell had been rung at once, each nerve singing in fierce, primal joy as his climax overtook him.

Moments passed; Castiel couldn’t even begin to hazard a guess at how many. Had someone forced him to put words to the sensation, he would have sworn that his true form had slipped free of his vessel, bathed itself in gold, and then fallen to Earth into a pool of sunlight. Who was he to know how long it took for such ecstasy to take place? A day? An age? A nanosecond? It could have been any or all of those things. He was utterly, blissfully lost to time.

Not Dean, though, it seemed. Castiel dazedly became aware of the hunter chuckling softly beneath him, so he turned a curious expression to the merry green eyes that regarded him.

“Finally made it back from wherever angels go when they come, huh?” he chortled. “Thought I’d lost you there for a minute.”

“I never left,” Castiel answered with a frown.

Dean laughed again. “Yeah, well … as positive as I am on the whole afterglow thing, can I move without offending you yet?”

Castiel quirked an eyebrow in question.

Dean rolled to his back and gestured vaguely between their bodies. “We’re both a bit … sticky.”

Castiel raised the hand that had formerly been wrapped around Dean, gazing at it thoughtfully and carding his fingertips through the remnants of Dean’s orgasm. It _had_ become unpleasantly sticky. Not to mention the front of his pants, he ascertained, gazing down with a grimace. Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean, who was unsuccessfully stifling a snort of laughter, then passed his unoccupied hand over himself to remove any trace of their activity. The angel pinned back his friend – lover? Was that what they were now? – with a flat glare as Dean cleared his throat and nodded down to where spatters of his fluid and Castiel’s still lingered on his stomach and hip.

“I should just let you remain sticky,” he retorted with a scowl.

“Not if you want me to return the favor tomorrow night,” he quipped, laughing outright when Castiel hastened to comply.

The angel pulled himself to a sitting position, favoring Dean with a small smile as the hunter resituated his clothes.

“Not going to try to go back to sleep?” Dean asked.

The seraph shook his head. “I’ll watch over you,” he replied as Dean settled back to the ground. Castiel spent the rest of the dark hours replaying the evening in his head and letting the sounds of Dean’s passion-soaked voice play like a hymn in his head.


	8. Chapter Seven – The Seventh Terrace: The Lustful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When viewing the last two flashbacks of Purgatory, I noticed that there is the insinuation that one continues directly into another – from the “Broken record, Cas” moment where Dean tells Castiel that nobody gets left behind to the “O ye of free and little faith” flashback where Dean absorbs Benny and leads Cas to the seam – there is enough of a break between the two that there is the possibility that time passes in the interim. For the purposes of my storytelling, I have chosen to interpret that a night passes between the two flashbacks. Hope this doesn’t ruffle anyone’s feathers.

**Chapter Seven – The Seventh Terrace: The Lustful**

 

_There, on all sides, I can see every shade,  
move quickly to embrace another shade,  
content they did not pause with their brief greeting_

_as ants, in their dark company, will touch  
their muzzles, each to each, perhaps to seek  
news of their fortunes and journeyings. _  
~Canto XXVI, lines 31–36

 

In the midst of a polluted holocaust of monsters and dirt and blood, Castiel finally learned what it really meant to _want_. All of the requirements and necessities of human nature paled in comparison, he came to realize, to the effect of the leather-clad arms of a hunter in a darkness unbroken by hope of relief. The pull he experienced as he watched Dean fight his way through the daylight terrain that stood between them and their inevitable descent into passion beckoned him with a force too great to sum up with simple words like “desire.” What Castiel battled against felt no less fierce than the swarms of beasts trying to kill them, and he felt certain that no angel had ever experienced such an overwhelming lure into temptation. He raged against it just to keep the instinct temporarily at bay: a soul-deep yearning that started in the unfathomable bottom of his being, woven into the very fiber of what made him up, and radiated through every atom of this vessel made up of nothing but needs and cravings folded in upon and doubling his own. His fundamental longing for this human rattled the very foundation of Castiel’s entire existence. If he had previously believed that Dean Winchester obsessed his thoughts, his judgments, his very senses, then it was nothing – _nothing_ – to the day that Castiel learned what it truly felt like to _lust._

The seraph had nearly gotten himself killed no less than three times that day due to sheer inattention. Had he been using his senses, he could have easily intercepted the attacks, but his mind seemed to be drowning in the weight of the hormones coursing through his veins. He nearly pulled his hair out in frustration. Was this how humans felt all the time? So swamped with lust just being in the same vicinity as their lover that they could barely function, barely think of anything else but the need to touch that person, to feel hot breath on their mouths, fingertips on their skin? If so, then Castiel would most definitely have to revise his opinions regarding human reserves of willpower. Every glance at Dean seemed exquisite torture, teasing of the promise to come under the cover of darkness.

Most of his near misses would have been easily avoidable had he troubled himself to focus, but the need to be close to Dean, to rest his cheek against the man’s stubbled jaw and feel his hot breath as they moved against each other pulled inexorably at him. Several times throughout the day, Dean paused briefly to gaze into Castiel’s eyes, giving him a small grin as if to say that he knew exactly where the seraph’s thoughts had skittered off to and was highly amused by their shared secret. Whenever Dean offered Castiel a hand up from the ground or favored him with a light graze of fingers against his wrist to check that the angel was unharmed, Castiel yearned for nothing more than then freedom to sink to the ground, lay his forehead to Dean’s, and map out the hunter’s body with his searching hands, inhaling gruff words of passion breathed out from Dean’s parted lips.

When inky darkness finally swallowed the last scraps of light, Castiel’s limbs wobbled under the shock of nervousness. Dean’s offer of reciprocation had ignited him the previous evening and the promise of it sustained him throughout the day, but now that the potential offer was so near, the reality of it wasn’t so much tantalizing as it was terrifying. Despite his bravado, which may have been as much to convince himself as Dean, his knowledge of and experience with human sexuality was largely comprised of several thousand years of detached observation and a smattering of viewings of cheap pornographic films in Dean’s motel rooms. His practical aptitude was practically nil and none of it included another man. And with a man as experienced with sexual acts as Dean, how was Castiel to keep from making a fool of himself? What interest could he possibly incite in someone like Dean?

“Cas?”

The seraph turned to find his friend reclining in the soft undergrowth surrounding a towering tree. Dean stretched one hand out in invitation, his face a mix of impertinence and enticement, but his eyes told Castiel a different story. The longer the seraph looked, the more he saw it: hesitancy, insecurity, uncertainty. As much as the hunter purported to want what was about to come, Dean’s eyes gave away his trepidation. Oddly, it was that more than anything else that allowed Castiel to unlock his limbs and lower himself to the ground beside Dean. At least he knew that he wasn’t alone in tasting fear along with his desire.

Castiel caught and held Dean’s gaze as they both laid their heads on the worn leather jacket. The hunter’s lips pulled up in a wry grin when the hand he placed on Castiel’s shoulder trembled just a bit. Castiel’s eyes wrinkled at the corners – the closest he ever really came to smiling – before his face settled back into lines of worry.

“Dean,” he began, but the other man just pushed at one shoulder until Castiel lay on his back, then pulled up on the other, coaxing the stiff angel to turn away from him. “Dean—” he tried again, but stopped when Dean’s arm slithered underneath his own and the wide, calloused palm flattened against his chest.

A few shuffling noises behind Castiel and the warmth of Dean’s body seeped into his back as the other man pressed close. Forehead nudged into Castiel’s locks, Dean let out a rush of humid air along the angel’s neck and the back of his ear; goose pimples rose all over Castiel as he fought not to shudder.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” Dean admitted in a gruff whisper.

“You have?” Castiel couldn’t mask his astonishment.

“Fuck yes,” the hunter growled, and this time, Castiel did shudder. “Could barely look at you. Kept remembering the way your hand felt around my cock. I spent most of the day trying not to pop a boner.”

Though his cheeks heated with Dean’s confession, Castiel groused, “I couldn’t tell,” which for some reason made Dean laugh. “I wasn’t as successful as you were, apparently.”

Dean’s chuckle warmed Castiel’s neck. “Yeah, well, I’ve had a hell of a lot more practice.”

Castiel stiffened; the reminder of the vast difference in their sexual histories just served to unnerve him again. The seraph’s resolve crumbled quickly when Dean’s arms encircled him. The slow undulation of the hunter’s hips lured Castiel into moving in tandem, causing his breath to hitch as Dean drew just the tips of his fingers in meandering paths along Castiel’s chest. His muscles jerked and he sucked in a gasp when the fingers slipped under his shirt and stroked low on his belly.

“How,” Castiel asked, “how do you know what to do?”

Little stuttering gasps left Castiel when Dean dragged his teeth up the side of the vein at the angel’s throat.

“Is that what you’re worried about? I don’t really.” When Castiel scoffed, Dean persisted, “I swear, I don’t. Look, this is just as new to me as it is to you. I just … thought of what feels good to me and figured I’d go from there.”

Castiel tried to remain receptive to Dean’s touch but was tense nonetheless.

“Cas, you don’t have to do anything, you know. Just feel, okay? Don’t think so much.”

With that, Dean’s hand resumed its quest, but this time, the touches were less quizzical and more intent, more seductive. The strong fingers skimmed across his belly, Castiel chasing their movement and whimpering when they lifted long before reaching his growing erection. Dean clutched at the top of the angel’s thigh, kneaded the lean muscle, the back of his thumb just grazing where Castiel most wanted him to touch. The angel groaned and canted his hips back into Dean’s; an answering moan was buried in Castiel’s hair and Dean flattened his palm on the angel’s abdomen and pushed, urging the curve of Castiel’s bottom against his groin. When the length of Dean’s erection slotted into the crevice of his rear, Castiel grasped at Dean’s hand on his stomach.

“Dean,” he ground out, _“please….”_

Castiel gulped in air as Dean slipped his fingers under the band of Castiel’s pants and darted down his skin. Dean’s thumb slid under his erection, fingers curling a loose hold around the hot skin.

“Dean, _Dean_ ,” Castiel prattled, unable to stop his hips from moving forward and back, silently begging the other man to increase his attentions.

Despite the angel’s pleas, Dean kept his strokes along Castiel’s length maddeningly steady. Impatient, the angel grunted in frustration, and Dean threaded his other arm under Castiel’s head to brace it across his chest like a firm hug, pausing his motions to mutter in the angel’s ear.

“Easy there.”

Castiel tried to push against Dean’s hand and again met resistance. “Dean, _please._ I’ve never felt this strongly before and I—” 

“I know,” Dean said soothingly, “I know. But you don’t have to chase after it, okay? Just relax and let it come to you. I’ll take care of you.”

Castiel’s blood surged at the hunter’s quiet declaration, but it had just as much to do with his heart as his body. Blunt fingers started their slow slide up and down Castiel’s length again and the angel leaned back against the hunter’s chest, trying to simply let the sensations caress him without straining towards them. The puff of Dean’s breath against the side of his throat; the scratch of calluses on Dean’s thumb that sent tingles shooting along beneath his skin whenever Dean curled it around the head of his penis; the scrape of cloth against his backside when Dean began to thrust with increasing feverishness into the space between his cheeks; Castiel let it all drag him under, the instincts of his vessel pulling him to an urgency that had Dean babbling in his ear.

“God, Cas, Jesus. I just want to—I can’t—but Christ, I _want_ to—”

“What?” Castiel asked, his voice turning to a yelp when Dean clamped his lips beneath Castiel’s ear and sucked hard. “What do you want to do? Tell me.”

Dean groaned as if in pain when Castiel grabbed at his hip; Castiel thrust harder into his grip.

“Take you,” the hunter spat out. He sounded as if it had been forced from him   
against his will. “God, I want to fuck you.”

Castiel didn’t even pause to think. “Take me. Have me. As much as you want, take it.”

Dean froze against him, the panting breaths against Castiel’s ear his only motion for at least a count of ten before responding.

“I can’t. I _shouldn’t._ I … I can’t.”

“Why?” Castiel asked. “Because you’re ‘not gay’? Isn’t it a little late for that old protest, Dean?”

“Because it’s too fast,” he said. “Because I don’t want to fuck this up. Jesus, Cas, I don’t even have anything to make this easier—” when Castiel turned to stare back at him with a raised eyebrow, he clarified, “a condom. Lube. _Something_.”

“Excuses. I doubt you could hurt me.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is? Clearly we both desire this. Why hold back then, other than fear? You may as well just take me, Dean, if that’s what you want. I’ve been yours all along. Surely you must see that.”

The hunter slowly drew his hands from Castiel’s clothes and the angel fought a sigh. It seemed that Dean’s fear and insecurity would bury his heart once again, much to Castiel’s chagrin. So the angel raised an eyebrow again when Dean lifted his hands in front of the seraph’s face.

“Cas, could you …?”

When Castiel failed to comprehend the request, Dean clarified in a hushed voice.

“You’re still an angel, Cas. You shouldn’t be taken by a man with blood on his hands.”

A light wave of Castiel’s fingers and Dean’s hands were clean. The action drained away much of his remaining Grace, but he considered it well lost. Castiel barely breathed as Dean fumbled behind him, the telltale noise of a zipper proceeding fingers brushing Castiel’s back as the hunter pushed his jeans away. The need for air to be taken into his vessel rushed back to Castiel when those warm hands slid over his hips, moving away Castiel’s pants and teasing a gasp from the angel’s lips when Dean’s bare flesh met his own. Fighting to keep inhaling and exhaling – he needed to remind himself to do this – Castiel stared at the fingers that return to his field of vision when Dean pressed them against his mouth.

“Suck,” Dean directed him. “As wet as you can make them. Lots of spit.”

Castiel took the digits into his mouth instantly, laving them without thought to seduction but rather a mindless need to follow Dean’s demand before the man came to his senses and stopped this entirely. His heart hammering within his borrowed ribs, Castiel darted his tongue between each of the three fingers, coating each one with as much saliva as he could; he couldn't guess at the need for it, but Dean had said as wet as he could manage so Castiel did as he was asked. The hunter stifled a few hiccupping moans in the hair behind Castiel's ears; he felt Dean's erection throb against the curve of his rear as Dean drew his fingers from the angel's mouth.

Nudging Castiel's top leg forward until the angel had to prop himself up on a knee and elbow, Dean slowly slid the wet fingers between the rounds of Castiel's rear. Castiel pressed his face into the worn leather jacket propping up his head, stifling a drawn-out gasp in the folds. His limbs felt both watery with nerves and electrified with anticipation, his vessel barely able to send the proper messages to his brain for translation. All he really knew was the word Dean repeated over and over again as the hunter gingerly breached Castiel's body with a single damp digit.

"Easy," Dean muttered into the angel's hair. "All the girls I've done this with say it feels better if you can relax."

Although he disconnectedly noted the slight twinge of a stretching sensation as Dean slid his finger deeper inside, Castiel heard in Dean's voice that the hunter was reassuring himself as much as Castiel. Dean had been correct in his assertion that, for all of his prior experience with sex, he was no more familiar with this than Castiel. So Castiel took it upon himself to bolster Dean as well: when he drew out the finger and then slid it back in again, this time a bit faster, Castiel did not stifle the small moan of pleasure that had built up in his chest. The angel was rewarded with an even faster slide on the next pass, which caused a delicious pulling sensation on the upstroke, so Castiel decided to encourage Dean as much as he could. A rock of his hips back into Dean's palm resulted in an increase in pace; a low moan of Dean's name received a groan at his ear and another finger pressed into his body. By the time Castiel had taken it upon himself to set his own pace, Dean panted into his hair and pushed in a third finger, now markedly unconcerned at whether or not Castiel proved as fragile as Dean originally feared. Castiel nearly forgot that there was supposed to be a greater goal to this whole process, so intent was he on the pleasurable burn of Dean's fingers within him that he growled in displeasure when Dean drew them away. 

"Hang on, hang on," Dean said, and Castiel could hear him spitting into his palm, feel him wrapping his fingers around his penis. "Just give me a second...."

The tip of the hunter’s erection left a small trail of wetness against Castiel's rear as Dean eased the blunt head of it against him. Dean used the bulk of his body to push Castiel onto his stomach as he rolled atop of the angel, the motion of it enough to slot his erection into the place where his fingers had been. 

Curling his shoulders around Castiel to place his mouth near the angel's ear, Dean breathed,   
"Spread your legs wider; let me in."

Castiel complied wordlessly. Dean's powerful thighs slid along the outside of his, dropping the hunter down against the cushion of Castiel's rear end, the downward pull of gravity being enough to bury Dean to the hilt inside of the angel. Castiel threw his head back against Dean's shoulder and smiled triumphantly; Dean lowered his face to the crook of Castiel's neck and let loose the sigh of someone who'd come home after an endless journey.

Castiel would have sworn that the two of them became one entity in those next few moments; they moved together, the rhythm of Dean's rolling hips fluid and practiced, guiding the angel beneath him into an unspoken instinctual dance. Dean thrust down into Castiel, the thick muscles of his buttocks and thighs clenching and releasing, his panting breaths parting Castiel's heavy locks. Castiel pushed up against him, meeting Dean thrust for thrust, letting his parched lips release a litany of the hunter's name as if praying to the man making love to him. Dean leaned his weight on one forearm and with the other, snaked his hand up to thread his fingers into Castiel's, clutching the angel's grip as if it were the only thing mooring him in this world. Perhaps it was.

It didn’t take long for Dean’s thrusts within Castiel to become erratic and desperate. The more the angel cried his name, the more Dean seemed to lose his grapple hold on self-control. A snap of Dean’s hips in just the right direction and Castiel moaned loudly, whimpering when Dean closed his teeth over the thread of muscle just where Castiel’s shoulder met his neck. And then Dean’s hips were crashing against his in a flurry of paroxysms, his whole body spasming as he cried out into the angel’s skin. Castiel reached back to clutch at the swell of Dean’s rear and hold the man tight to his body as Dean’s climax roared through him, filling Castiel with a rush of warm wetness. An involuntary whine left his lips when Dean finally stilled, to be replaced by a hiss through clenched teeth when Dean threaded a hand beneath Castiel’s body and wrapped it around his aching erection. A few swift strokes along Castiel’s length and stars burst behind his eyelids. Unlike the previous evening, his climax was like a knife jab to the belly, quick and hot and stunning in its intensity. 

Castiel’s arms and legs trembled with the effort to hold him up as he rode out the quick flash of sensation and the aftershocks it sent careening through his vessel. Strong fingers still slid up and down his penis, slower now, gently bringing him down from the dizzying height of his peak. As Dean drew his hand away, Castiel let his quaking limbs fold beneath him, bringing him down to the covering of leaves with a soft _whump_. The angel buried his face in his folded forearms and concentrated on just drawing breath for a few moments. He heard Dean roll onto his back to stare up into the canopy of the trees overhead. A few moments later, Castiel managed to shift enough to glance over at Dean; he hadn’t bothered to right himself or his clothes at all, just laid on his back with one hand covering his thundering heart as he stared above him.

“You can’t see any stars here. I miss the stars,” Dean mumbled absently. The hunter’s eyes darted sideways just enough to catch Castiel looking at him and then wrenched back upwards. A smile quirked the corners of Dean’s lips, still slightly swollen from traversing Castiel’s neck.

_“So,”_ Dean said, his voice thick with levity, “never pegged you for someone who’d be noisy in the sack. Thought you were going to draw the attention of every monster in a five mile radius.”

Castiel levered himself up on his forearms to glare at Dean. Narrowing his eyes to a squint, he said flatly, “I wasn’t aware that giving a lover vocal encouragement was frowned upon.”

Dean’s grin widened. “It isn’t. Just didn’t figure you for a screamer; thought you’d be all quiet and intense. Well,” he turned to direct the smile at Castiel, “I didn’t think I’d ever find out _personally_ , but—”

_“Dean.”_

“Yeah?”

“Stop talking. You do not need to fill the silence if you feel awkward about engaging in intimate sexual congress.”

The hunter flopped back onto his back, his face sober again. He took a few deep breaths before saying, “I don’t really know how to handle this, Cas.” 

Castiel waved his hand across both his body and Dean’s, removing any traces of their activity, before resituating his clothing and rolling to his side to watch as Dean replaced his own. 

“I understand that this must be strange for you. Given that angels are neither gender-oriented nor sexually oriented in the way that humans are, I don’t have the need for the re-identification that you must feel as a result of our activities. But I want you to understand that if anything we have done this evening causes you regret, you don’t—”

_“Cas.”_

“Yes, Dean?”

The hunter darted out an arm, twined it around the seraph’s shoulder, and dragged Castiel down against his side. 

“Stop talking.”

Castiel’s lips quirked up at the edges. When Dean moved to settle down for sleep, Castiel rested his head in the pocket of the hunter’s shoulder and draped an arm across his chest.

“Yes, Dean.”

Castiel monitored the night sounds around them, listening intently to the shuffling noises of creatures moving in the dark as the rise and fall of Dean’s chest beneath his hand became slow and rhythmic. After what was at least a half hour of undisturbed quiet, Castiel was surprised to hear the rasp of Dean’s voice again. 

“Also?”

Castiel glanced up at the hunter’s face. “Yes, Dean?”  
Dean chuckled without opening his eyes. “You are definitely the only person I know who would refer to his first time taking it up the ass from another dude as ‘intimate sexual congress’.” He laughed again, the ear Castiel had pressed against his chest vibrating with the rumble of it. “Don’t ever change, Cas.”

*****

_"My son, you've seen the temporary fire  
and the eternal fire; you have reached  
the place past which my powers cannot see._

 _I've brought you here through intellect and art;  
from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;  
you're past the steep and past the narrow paths. _  
~Canto XXVII, lines 127-132

 

Benny didn’t exactly regret telling his friend to think about knobbing the angel but the change in dynamic wasn’t exactly what the vampire had intended. Lord knows it was a much calmer atmosphere since Dean had started giving it to the angel nightly, but Benny now felt like an unwanted houseguest crashing on newlyweds. Every time the three of them had a break in combat long enough for some rest, Benny had a guaranteed thinly-veiled exile unless he wanted an eyeful. The first time it happened had been enough; he didn’t need a second helping.

He couldn’t really fault either one of them, though. From the angel’s side of things, it was fairly clear that old Hot Wings had harbored some tenderness for the gruff hunter for some time now, whether he was aware of it or not. The angel’s previous jealousy and sullen disapproval had melted into single-minded dedication to doting upon and protecting Dean from harm once they had taken up a physical relationship. Benny doubted that he could have pried the angel off Dean’s side with a crowbar the size of the Titanic. And although the uppity jackass still had a tendency to get under his skin quick and hot, Benny tried to tamp down on it. Mostly because of the change in Dean.

Contrary to what Benny had expected, Dean’s conflict seemed to have deepened in the past few days. His resolve to find the portal to Earth had, if anything, grown stronger, but the idea of going home appeared to have stopped giving the man any sense of relief or pleasure. Every time the return to Earth was mentioned, the hunter’s lips would pull up in something Benny was certain was meant to be a smile but never raised any higher than the bottom of his cheeks. Dean would blather some pat words about not being able to decide what he would have first – a bath, a burger, or a beer – but his gaze always trailed away towards the angel and lines of stress pulled at his forehead. 

Benny had been ganked and in Purgatory long before Dean Winchester ever walked the Earth, but word of the fearless and ferocious pair of hunting brothers threaded among most of the monsters that had ever encountered him. He had known who Dean Winchester was long before he saved the man’s hide; he’d heard bits and pieces of stories chewed on by shifters and vamps and all sorts of creatures, some who knew the boys by reputation only and some who had the Winchesters’ stern faces as their last living memories. He’d never personally had much of an axe to grind with hunters like the Winchester boys, but Benny was damn sure that Dean’s history with the population of Purgatory was half their problem. But Benny hadn’t really been able to help feeling just the slightest bit sorry for Dean, even before he’d known him. Unlike most of the creatures he encountered here as well as their hunter counterparts, Dean and his brother hadn’t chosen their lot, it had been forced on them. Maybe Benny sympathized more than he ought to, but he understood the way that kind of burden weighed on a person. 

It wasn’t exactly a surprise then that the hunter had turned out to be a fairly broken human being the first time Benny met him here in Monster Land. What he’d been through on Earth – and Benny guessed that what he knew was only a fraction of the real story – was enough to break most men, so he wasn’t particularly startled by it. As long as the hunter came through with his end of the deal, Benny hadn’t been fussed one way or the other whether or not Winchester came out of it with any more mental scars. What Benny hadn’t expected was that he would end up trusting the man. Caring about him. Damaged goods or not, Dean Winchester was a good man and when Dean gave his word, he held onto it. Benny couldn’t ask for more than that. 

Benny certainly hadn’t expected to find himself in the position of relationship counselor either. The thought still made him chuckle, when he wasn’t so frustrated he could scream. Hearing the buzz throughout Purgatory that there was a half-crazed human on the hunt for an angel had been tempting enough for Benny to want a look anyway, but watching the man turn into a vicious, brutal fighter cutting a swath of blood to find his friend … well, that had turned out to be far different than he counted on. When he first saw Hot Wings in the flesh, Benny was almost disappointed. Dean hadn’t been the only one with a reputation coming into Purgatory. Plenty of the beasties down here had heard of the angel who had fought his way through Hell and dragged out a human soul. The meat suit Cas wore was more or less unremarkable – medium height, medium build, muscled enough to take a hit but not overly strong – but didn’t seem to warrant the talk that made it to Benny’s ears. He’d been baffled at the hunter’s ruthless commitment to finding him. Sure, he’d heard that the angel was a friend of the human’s, a brother-in-arms even, but that wouldn’t warrant the effort Dean had expended tearing apart Purgatory to find him. Not until Benny had the chance to watch the two of them together.

Whatever protests Dean made, it had taken Benny less than ten minutes to realize that it wasn’t only the angel carrying a torch. It had only taken about ten more minutes to realize that the hunter didn’t have the slightest concept of how deep those feelings ran; his or the angel’s. The more time they spent needling each other as the group crossed Purgatory, the more frustrated Benny had gotten. There was only so much pussy-footing around that two people could do before you have to make a choice to either get up and dance or walk away from the dance floor. Well, the vampire had been nearly certain that Dean would run like hell, but lo and behold … it seemed that the hunter had learned to dance.

He hadn’t lied to Dean when he’d told that man that he’d grown up in a place and time that didn’t look too kindly on two men feeling the way they did about each other, but after what Benny had gone through, he more or less promised himself to be the last person to deny someone the comfort of being with a person they loved. And that’s what he saw in these two, whether they saw it or not, whether they admitted it or not. So when the two of them found some lame reason to send him farther and farther away on his nightly patrols – as if he couldn’t smell the hormones comin’ off the two of them for at least a hundred yards – the vampire just sighed and shrugged and tried not to complain too much. He reminded himself how he’d been when he’d first met Andrea and just grumbled to himself somewhere they couldn’t hear him and waited for them to call him back again.

It had been a long, lonely week.

Their time in Purgatory was closing, though, Benny could feel it. The more they headed north-west towards where his informants had told him the seam lay, the more his skin hummed and anxiety picked at his nerves. Dean was the key to opening the portal, of course, but Benny had been human once, too; maybe the way out sensed him on that same low frequency that he felt it call out on. A day or two at most and he’d be not-breathing free air again. The thought made him smile despite the lukewarm but determined responses from his travelling companions. So much so that he couldn’t really force himself to be too bothered when the hunter and the angel stayed silent for the rest of the day’s journey. He even cut the angel a break when Dean prodded him yet again for his pre-emptive forgiveness if the angel got left behind.

“Broken record, Cas,” he said, attempting to cut off yet another of Dean’s angry retorts that displayed his clear refusal to accept what may very well become reality soon enough. 

When he came upon the angel backing the hunter into a broad tree trunk later in the day, eagerly pressing his lips against Dean’s, Benny shouldn’t have been surprised but he was. Despite the fact that they pawed at each other every night like frantic teenagers, somehow Benny knew that what he witnessed then was the first kiss. Unlike the fevered couplings under the cover of darkness, the angel’s motions seemed motivated by more than just desire; his hands shook as they braced on either side of the hunter’s face, his lips quivered, and in those fragile gestures, Benny saw both desperate love and crippling sorrow. It was that moment that Benny realized he knew something that his friend did not: the angel never meant to escape Purgatory. He had _always_ meant to stay behind. Benny watched, stunned and just a bit heartsick, as the angel kissed his lover goodbye.

*****

_Our sin was with the other sex; but since  
we did not keep the bounds of human law,  
but served our appetites like beasts…._

 _You now know why we act so, and you know  
what our sins were. _  
~ Canto XXVI, lines 82-84; 88-89

 

Sometimes, Dean just wanted to punch Cas in his entirely-too-pretty-for-a-million-year-old-virgin face. The fact that after all this time, practically an entire fucking year, that winged son of a bitch still thought he would leave him behind. Maybe it shouldn’t make Dean mad that Cas was trying to release him from guilt if things went sour, but damn it, he was mad and he had every right to be. After all the shit they’d been through even before they crashed in Monster Land, Cas still thought he didn’t fucking matter enough to Dean to find a way to save him? And after everything that happened _in_ Purgatory, how could he even think for one second—?

Dean growled to himself when he realized that he was blushing. Again. Fuck, Dean Winchester did not blush when he thought about sex. He hadn’t blushed about _anything_ since he was about eleven, especially not sex. Hell, he practically waved a flag with a condom on it every time he thought about sex. Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair and tried to will the redness from his cheeks. He wasn’t blushing because it was sex, he was blushing because it was sex with just about the last person on the planet he’d ever expected to have sex with. Sure, pretty much everybody and their brother – even Cas’s brothers – had joked about it but …. That actually made him wonder if any of the people that poked fun at him and Cas over the years about their ‘profound bound’ had actually, well, _meant_ it. Had anybody suspected that the two of them might eventually find themselves in this position? Had somebody seen something they hadn’t?

Dean tried to feel embarrassed or even guilty about it, but if he was really honest with himself, he couldn’t manage to do it. After everything they’d been through together, been for each other and to each other, it seemed like this just ended up being another piece of their story that clicked into place. He wouldn’t start spouting some romantic crap about destiny or some shit like that but he would say – if it was just to himself in his own head – that maybe it had been burned into his skin the first time Cas had laid a hand on him in Hell. Maybe his connection to Cas had been branded onto him down to the soul; maybe this was just the way to deal with all the shit that neither one of them could manage to put words to.

It’s not as if Dean had ever exactly been aces at “talking it out”, anyway. Sammy had always been the closest person in the world to Dean, the only person he’d ever really trusted with his feelings until Cas came along, and even Sam had to pry his emotions out of him with a crowbar. In true Winchester fashion, the only way Dean really knew how to deal with his shit was to bury it in a fucking lockbox because the crap he dealt with on a daily basis would tear you apart top to bottom if you didn’t. Purgatory was no different.

Actually, if Dean was really going to be honest with himself, Purgatory was easier. It didn’t matter that he’d spent his entire life drowning in booze and sex; it didn’t matter if he was “worthy” enough for Heaven or fucked up enough to deserve Hell. Whatever fuck-ups he made in the past didn’t touch him here, and on the flipside, neither did any of those shining moments of selflessness that he managed to stumble into now and then. The only thing that mattered here was keeping sharp, staying alive. Maybe that’s why Dean had only been able to open that door to Cas here: he was living his life on a knife edge, so whatever didn’t make him dead only made him more alive. And there was something about the simplicity of your only choices being dead or alive that allowed you to live however the hell you wanted. So what if he was fucked up enough to feel more at home in Purgatory than he did on Earth half the time? The way he’d felt the last few nights when he’d had Cas against him made him feel more human, more alive, than he had in a long time, and he didn’t have to give a damn what anyone else but Cas thought about it. If it weren’t for the gut-deep sadness from being without Sammy, Dean might have even said that he felt like the version of himself that felt the most … pure. And so much of that had come from just giving up in the face of everything that had built up between him and Cas. But how do you even start to put shit like that into words?

And from Dean’s point of view, sometimes trying to put words to things that couldn’t be explained just fucked everything up. Trying to treat sex with Cas as casually as he did with most of the women he’d ever slept with had only made him feel awkward and shallow, and Cas trying to talk about anything in any kind of normal fashion never ended well. They seemed to have come to an understanding: Dean could only say what he felt in the dark against Cas’s skin; the things Cas said with his body were far smoother than anything he could say with his mouth. So they didn’t talk about it, they just acted on it.

Well, _Dean_ acted on it, anyhow. Cas would follow any direction Dean made, agree to any request he asked for instantly and enthusiastically but he never made any demands of his own. The angel always reacted to Dean with an eagerness that, frankly, was really bad for Dean’s ego but the hunter couldn’t help but be surprised that he never took any initiative. Cas had never pulled punches with Dean, hadn’t spared Dean his honest and harsh opinion when they were at odds, so the fact that Cas seemed to be meekly following wherever Dean led had him a bit worried. The more he thought about it, the more Dean felt uneasy about it. Cas’s obviously trumped-up stories about his sex life with Daphne left Dean more than a little anxious that the angel had agreed to sex simply because he was too inexperienced to know when to say no. As much as Dean dreaded having to jump feet first into what was sure to be the most awkward conversation of his life, he knew he had to sideline the angel for a talk.

Dean chafed his hand against the back of his neck before grabbing at the angel’s sleeve and tugging him back behind a large tree.

“Hey, uh, Cas, I wanted to ask you about something,” Dean started, wincing at how his voice hitched a bit. “When we … when you and I have … look, I just want to make sure that you didn’t go along with it just because … I mean, you know that you don’t have to—aw, hell.”

Castiel stared at Dean for a long moment before responding, “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” Dean grumbled. “Jesus, I hate that I have to sound like a fucking after school special.” 

After swearing roundly another few times, Dean finally regrouped. 

“You know that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, right? I mean, I know you want to with your body, but … you don’t have to please me because you feel you’ve got something to prove after ditching me. I know that you don’t really have a ton of experience with keeping a clear head when you’re all riled up, but you _can _say no. You know that, right? You don’t have to want to do things just because you think I do.”__

__Dean waited what seemed like forever as Cas’s ice blue eyes scoured his. Just when Dean believed that Cas would keep silent like he did sometimes when he was just digesting a thought, the angel did the last thing Dean expected: Cas strode forward until Dean’s back bumped the tree trunk, clasped Dean’s face between his shaking fingers, and clamped his lips over Dean’s._ _

__For the first few seconds, Dean couldn’t seem to anything but stand stock still in surprise. In hindsight, it seemed stupid to be shocked by a kiss from the person you’d been fucking for almost a week, but Dean felt even more stupid for never realizing that they hadn’t kissed. Jesus, almost a week of the most intense sex he’d ever had and he hadn’t even kissed the man. Even more than stupid, Dean felt ashamed. He’d kissed girls in bars that he’d known less than an hour on the promise of nothing more exciting than a quick hand job and he hadn’t even kissed the only person that had ever shaken him down to his bones. Well, he was damn well going to make up for that right-fucking-now._ _

__Dean wound his hands up under Cas’s arms and wrapped his fingers around the base of the angel’s neck, reeling him in closer as he began to kiss back. Everything Dean couldn’t say with words, he said with his body. He turned his head to one side, smiling a bit as the tip of his nose bumped against Cas’s. Letting his mouth fall open a bit, he caught the angel’s bottom lip between his, sucked it in a bit and got rewarded with a rumble of voice from deep within the angel’s chest. Castiel opened to gasp for air, a little whimper escaping him, and Dean chased it with his tongue, threading it into the angel’s mouth and stroking along the slippery muscle that responded immediately. Spurred on by the passion spiking between them, Dean let Cas pin him to the tree with his slender hips, a little embarrassed how hard he’d gotten just from a freaking kiss. When Cas rolled his hips against Dean’s, grinding a rather impressive erection against the hunter’s, Dean flashed from embarrassment to arousal lightning quick._ _

__But he had to keep his head. They couldn’t let this run away with them. Not here. Not now. So Dean forcibly gentled the kiss – with no little amount of protesting from Cas – and quirked up a lopsided grin._ _

__“Easy there, trigger,” he said. Since he was still a bit shaky in his hold on his libido, Dean eased Cas an arm’s length away from him. “Plenty of time for that later. Since you don’t seem to have any objections.”_ _

__Cas’s eyes searched him again. “No, Dean. I don’t have any objections. I quite emphatically approve.”_ _

__“Come on, Cas-anova,” Dean chuckled a bit at his own pun, “we have to get at least a few more hours of hiking in before we stop for the night.”_ _

__

____

*****

Laying down for the evening proved far more awkward than Dean had expected. Cas seemed to think that they would just fall into sex immediately upon resting – not entirely unexpected given the way the afternoon had gone – but Dean couldn’t get over his earlier worry. When automatically curled up with his back against Dean, the hunter couldn’t stop himself from grabbing Cas’s shoulder and pushing him around until Dean could look him in the eye again.

“About what I said earlier—” Dean began.

“I told you that I don’t having any objections,” Cas said, impatient. “I would have thought that was obvious given my vocal encouragement during our sexual encounters—”

“God, I wish you wouldn’t say it like that,” Dean mumbled, “it makes me feel like a sex offender.”

“—but if it’s not, I can be more overt in my praise.”

“No, Cas, you’re about as overt as a fucking Pride Parade. Overt is not the problem.”

The angel squinted at him, turning his head to the side to study Dean which, considering the fact that they were laying down, looked just ridiculous enough to tease a grin from Dean’s lips.

“Then what are you still concerned about?” Cas asked.

Dean frowned a bit and then reached out to lay a hand to Cas’s face. He hesitated, second-guessed himself a bit, but forced himself through the gawkiness and placed his open palm against Cas’s cheek. When the angel’s eyes crinkled at the edges, warmed by the gesture, Dean stroked the top of Cas’s cheek with his thumb.

“You don’t always have to—” Dean started again but decided to try a different tack. “Things are different now, Cas. Things are going to be different between us even when we get home. You can see that, right? How things are going to change?”

Maybe it made him a coward, but Dean couldn’t bring himself to ask Cas straight out whether he wanted this to continue once they got back to Earth. Whether Cas wanted to be with him once they were removed from the cloaking effects of Purgatory. Cas was quiet so long it nearly made Dean sick with worry, especially since the angel wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“What has happened between us has changed everything,” Cas answered evasively.

“And … is that a good thing?” Dean said, damning the break in his voice. “You won’t regret it once we get back?”

Finally, Cas’s eyes lifted to Dean’s. “I will never regret what has passed between us, Dean. I will carry it with me always.”

Trying to keep a relieved smile from splitting his face, Dean nodded. “And you understand that when you’re … with someone like you and I have been, you don’t always have to … I mean, you in particular won’t always have to be the one… you know…”

Dean gestured vaguely between them as Cas squinted in confusion. After a moment, Cas caught on.

“Taking it up the ass,” he said with a sage nod.

“Jesus, Cas. I really need to teach you some tact with this shit.” 

The angel scowled. “I was just saying it the way you said it the other day.”

“I know, but—” Dean sighed. “No euphemisms until you’ve proved you can use them without making me feel violated.”

Cas gave him a flat stare. “Interesting choice of words considering the action you were discussing perpetrating upon _my_ person.” 

Dean let his hand slide from Cas’s cheek so that he could clap the palm over his own face. “Seriously, you make me feel like I should be on a Wanted poster.”

“I do want you, if that’s what you mean.”

Dean peaked out at Cas with one eye. The statement had been so innocently honest that he couldn’t help but smile.

“Yeah, right back at ya,” he said with a tiny smile. “But what I meant was that we don’t always have to have sex like that. Maybe … maybe tonight, I want to see your face.” He gulped before he said the words. “Kiss you when I’m touching you. It doesn’t always have to be the other way.”

Cas moved towards him little by little, inching up on an elbow and leaning in slowly as if he thought Dean might shy away. Their lips slid together in a silky slide and Dean let his muscles go loose, falling to his back as Cas slid over him. The angel’s weight was warm and strangely comfortable on his chest, new and pleasantly unfamiliar when they caught and chafed and stroked against each other in ways so different to a woman’s body. Looping one hand underneath Cas’s bracketing arms to clutch at his shoulder, Dean slid the other down to clutch at the angel’s rear, guiding him into a slow roll that rubbed the angel’s hardened length against his just enough to start his blood warming but he still wanted so much more. Cas had proved himself a quick learner over the last few days, his body moving against Dean’s much more naturally as they rocked and dipped together. 

The angel proved curious in his exploration of Dean’s mouth, his tongue sliding against his teeth, the roof of his mouth, the inside of his cheeks; everywhere that he could reach with the probing tip of his tongue, Castiel devoured the sensation with a low hum of pleasure that set Dean’s nerves humming. Soon, the hunter’s hand was clamped against Castiel’s backside tightly, pushing against him to try to relieve some of the aching tension in their bodies. Electrified, Dean wrenched the two of them up into a sitting position, pulling the angel up to straddle his lap. A small smile picked at Dean’s lips as he used his new leverage to grapple with the folds of the trench coat, forcing it from Cas’s shoulders with a grunt and rushing to ensure that his shirt followed suit.

Cas seemed to be surprised to find himself bare-chested when Dean finally pushed the battered scrubs from the angel’s arms, saying “Dean” with a total of such astonishment that the hunter felt almost predatory.

“I want to see you tonight; _all_ of you,” Dean rumbled low in his throat. “I want you to see me, too.”

The force of Cas’s gaze in his eyes felt like it grabbed Dean at the base of his spine and shook; he let himself shudder. Only the space of that gaze passed before Cas attacked the jacket at Dean’s shoulders, pushing it away and quickly divesting the hunter of his other layers. Cas grabbed at Dean’s shoulders so hard that his knuckles whitened, pressing their naked chests together as he rocked in Dean’s lap; he took Dean’s bottom lip between his teeth, sucking and biting in tandem with the rock of his hips as he ground down against Dean’s hard length. The hunter groaned and redoubled his enthusiastic plundering of Cas’s mouth. Dean groaned when Cas shifted off his lap but hurriedly complied when the angel tugged at his zipper, unwilling to leave his kiss long enough to focus on the task, but shucking his own pants in an ungainly hop when Dean’s hands took care of his own jeans.

Cas had dropped to his knees so quickly and unexpectedly that Dean actually cried out in shock when the angel’s mouth engulfed his erection. He had to fling his hands out behind himself to brace his body to keep from wobbling over, a moan tearing itself out of his mouth as he watch his slowly disappearing and reappearing from between the angel’s lips.

“Jesus, Cas! Warn a guy,” he hiccupped, and then cried, “fuck!” when the angel let it drop from his lips, shiny with spit.

“This seemed a more prudent source of lubrication, given our change of position,” the angel explained, his face startlingly calm despite his heaving chest and flushed cheeks.

Dean couldn’t help but smile. “ ‘A more prudent source of lubrication’. Man, you know I love it when you talk nerdy to me.”

Cas squinted for a moment, certain that an insult was buried in the comment somewhere, but Dean didn’t allow him time to figure it out. He dragged the angel back into his lap and slid his fingers down the angel’s hips towards his rear. Cas shook his head emphatically.

“Dean, how often must I tell you, the preparation is unnecessary.”

“I don’t want to hurt you—” 

“However weak I feel here, Dean, I am still an angel; I still have my strength and you will not hurt me. I want to feel you _now_.”

When Cas moved to position himself this time, Dean didn’t fight but simply let his head tip back as he absorbed the sensation of the tight, hot slide of Cas’s body as he settled onto Dean’s erection. Leaning back on his hands again, he let Cas drive their coupling, the angel slowly sliding along Dean’s length, kneading at the hunter’s shoulders and he moved up and down. As Cas’s pace increased, Dean curled his arms around him, clutching at one shoulder and one flexing cheek and letting his mouth trail along the ridge of the angel’s collarbone. Cas’s muscles strained as he quickened his pace, panting just above Dean’s face pressed to his chest. The angel began to angle his hips as he rocked, chafing his own erect penis against Dean’s stomach and whimpering with every pleasurable tug of sensation. When Dean wrapped one hand around Cas’s length and started a swift, tight stroke, the angel’s pace faltered and his nails dug into the thick muscle at Dean’s shoulders. Dean brought his free hand up to drag his thumb across the angel’s bottom lip; the angel groaned and bit down on it.

Cas’s panting breaths became rough against Dean’s temple, so he dragged both hands down to clutch at the angel’s rear, clasping him tightly and holding him still as Dean levered himself up into the angel at a punishing pace. Cas had to prop himself up on his knees to keep from bucking under the force of Dean’s thrusts, and when the angel’s peak burst through him, Dean simply angled his hips and thrust until he found that spot that made his lover shout and scrabble his fingers along Dean’s back. 

When Cas eventually came down from the high of his climax, he realized that Dean still rocked up within him rhythmically, still hard and searching for his own climax. Dean had let his eyes drop closed as he leaned his forehead against Cas’s chest, straining too hard to find a peak that danced out of his reach.

“Dean,” Cas said, low and intense, drawing Dean’s gaze to his.

The eyes that fixed upon Dean’s in that moment didn’t seem tempered by the years of sorrow and hardship and mistakes that Cas had endured since they’d met; his eyes were the fierce, clear and icy blue of the angel that had strode towards him surrounded by gun blasts and lightning flashes and declared that God had work for him. Had they been the declarative type, that would have been the moment that one of them, or perhaps even both, would have declared love. Instead, Cas just said what he always said.

_“Dean.”_

And it was enough to have the hunter tumbling over his peak into the void, cushioned by Cas’s warm body, steady breaths, and gentle hands at his shoulders. For just a moment, his sins were forgiven and Dean felt pure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering and/or had trouble picturing the position that Cas and Dean were in during the first sex scene, I had a gif that I used as reference for the positioning. I attempted to find a way to post it here and I can't remember where I got it from, so anyone who can help out with that would be my hero.


	9. The Summit: Earthly Paradise

**Epilogue – The Summit: Earthly Paradise**

 

_But Virgil had deprived us of himself,  
Virgil, the gentlest father, Virgil, he  
To whom I gave my self for salvation._

_And even all our ancient mother lost  
Was not enough to keep my cheeks, though washed  
with dew, from darkening again with tears. _  
~ Canto XXX, lines 49–54

 

Dean stared out the window without really making sense of anything that lay beyond the pane of glass. He had just about gotten to that level of drunk where things stopped making sense anyway. The sort of drunk that far outreaches those sappy assholes who pay $15 a martini to get shit-faced and rub up against each other until they have stranger-sex in a bathroom at a club. He was pretty sure he was getting to the level of drunk where you’re beyond caring that you’re doing irreparable damage to your liver. A tiny smile quirked his lips when he thought of how pissed Cas would be when he found out he’d have to fix Dean’s liver again. And then the smile slipped from his face when the alcohol slipped away in an unfortunate second of clarity and he remembered. 

Cas wouldn’t be pissed. Cas wouldn’t be anything. Cas was gone. Dean threw the end of his glass of whiskey down his throat and reached for the next full bottle.

He should have seen it coming, really. Dean Winchester couldn’t have people he cared about. The world wouldn’t allow him. Fuck, the only reason why he and Sammy were still together was that God was too much of a fucking sadist to just take pity on them and either leave them the fuck alone or just let them both die. Sammy was pretty much the only person he had now, and although his brother was _here_ with him … he wasn’t really. Dean couldn’t entirely blame him, much as he might want to. He’d gotten a taste, just a little finger-lick really, of what it would be like to care that much about someone and then have it all yanked away, and he wasn’t exactly handling it like a champ.

A glance at the clock told Dean that he really should be sleeping, if for no other reason than to give his body a few hours to burn off the booze before he had to be alert enough to drive. But he couldn’t. Three weeks out of Monster Land and he still couldn’t sleep more than an hour or two a night; even then, he kept waking up expecting to feel Cas’s warm palm on his chest, his slim body pressed tight against Dean’s back. And once that illusion shattered around him, there was no sense trying to get to sleep again. He’d never been able to get back to sleep when he had nightmares of Hell, either. Except that these weren’t really nightmares, and that was half of what was fucking with his head. Part of him tried to stay awake as long as possible so he wouldn’t have to live in that half-awake place where Cas was still with him, but the other half ached to sleep for days just to have the chance to feel the angel’s breath against his skin again. 

Dean stared down at that the sudden puddles of wetness on his t-shirt, completely blank and confused. When it dawned on him that they had dripped from his chin, he swiped a hand across his face, far more astonished than he should have been to realize they were tears. That clinched it for him: if Dean Winchester had gotten so drunk that he had turned into a sniveling teenage girl crying over her boyfriend, then it was time to put down the booze.

Staggering to the bathroom, Dean left a trail of clothing that he couldn’t really be bothered to pick up. In the bathroom, Dean shucked his boxer shorts and took a moment to stand in front of the mirror naked, just gazing at his reflection. On some levels, the man in the mirror was who he had always been. Chaos, combat, and loss had been a part of Dean’s life for so long that he was pretty damn certain that the average person wouldn’t be able to see another layer on his face. But Dean saw it. His eyes had a few more wrinkles at the corners. His cheekbones stood out a little more from over a year of little food and the ravages of detox. The hollows under his eyes told of both his lack of sleep and his reacquaintance with his drinking problem. Below his chin, he was remarkably untouched. Maybe it was all of Cas’s healing, maybe it was the fact that he had made it out of most of his fights in Purgatory without letting his opponent get the upper hand on him, but his skin was as smooth as it had ever been. Well, as smooth as it had been since Cas had needed to start healing him on a regular basis a few years ago. He ran a hand across his chest, feeling the planes of muscle and trying to imagine how it would have felt to someone who had never had a male lover before. How it would feel to someone like Cas, who could see and hear and feel things Dean couldn’t even imagine.

Because the heavy snores from the other room told Dean that he wouldn’t be interrupted by his little brother any time soon, he indulged himself in a moment to turn this way and that, looking at his body from a few different angles. He hadn’t really thought much about his physique as it might appear to a sexual partner in a long time. Dean kept himself in good shape – didn’t really have much of a choice – and he knew he was pretty damn attractive when he wanted to be. And between the physicality of hunting and regular sex, Dean knew every inch of his body and how it worked. As such, he didn’t really think much about how his body looked to someone else since women’s reactions usually told him all he needed to know. After being with Cas, though, he felt different. Just the fact that it involved Cas made it different. He turned his back to the mirror and glanced over one shoulder and then the other, trying to hear in his mind what Cas would say about how he looked. Probably something incredibly awkward followed by something insanely blunt but touching. 

Thinking about Cas and touching made his cheeks heat, a mixture of embarrassment and arousal. Dean couldn’t help but think how strange it was to experience that pleasant swoop of sexual thrill in his belly when thinking about the angel. Even if Dean had ever had any inkling that he would go for a dude, if you had told him even a month or two before it actually happened that said dude would be _Cas_ , he would have laughed right in your freakin’ face. Removed from all the context, the idea of Heaven’s Most Socially Awkward Angel indulging in ‘sins of the flesh’ would still seem pretty damn ridiculous to him if he didn’t have the sensations of the angel’s body burned into his memory. Dean supposed that anyone who had ever wondered if he might be a switch hitter – and he knew that there had been a few who wondered – would never have imagined that the person to get him to cross to the other side of the plate would be someone like Cas. Cas, who didn’t understand the concept of sexuality enough to understand porn. Cas, who had gone into his potential first sexual encounter not with excitement but with complete white-knuckled terror. But to Dean, all he could think was that he was also Cas, who threw away everything comfortable and reassuring just to stand up next to Dean when he asked for support. And Cas, who tried so damn hard to do whatever he thought was the right thing no matter what it cost him. And Cas, who came every time Dean asked for help. And Cas, who looked at him and saw someone righteous, someone beautiful. Cas, who took his battered and broken soul from darkness and raised him into the light. It wasn’t anything to do with Cas being a woman or a man. It was about Cas being his salvation. 

Eyes beginning to fill again, Dean slid his hand up to cover his left shoulder. In a flash, he felt the shock of it like a punch to the gut: the hand print on his shoulder was gone. He didn’t know when it had disappeared, whether it had been one of Cas’s night time healings or something about being torn away and leaving Cas in Purgatory, but the skin on his left shoulder was now as smooth and unmarked as his right. Dean lifted shaking fingers to splay out over where the print used to be, practically nauseous when his fingers confirmed what the mirror told him. He squeezed his eyes shut and fought against a wave of anguish. He had hated the damn thing when he first noticed it branded onto his skin when he crawled out of that grave, but over the years it he’d come to be fond of it. It had come to feel like a link between them, a tangible lifeline between him and the first being other than Sam who believed that Dean was worth saving. The fact that it was gone now not only left Dean feeling hollow but hammered home the truth he had been trying to drink away: Cas was gone for good this time. And Dean had left part of himself tethered to the angel back in Purgatory.

*****

In the weeks that blurred by, Dean tried to crawl back out of the bottle in the only way that had ever succeeded: by burying himself in the work. Telling himself that the only way to make up for Cas getting left behind was to be the best damn hunter he could, and right now that meant figuring out what the fuck was going on with the chain of natural disasters that seemed to link up with all the kidnappings. The signs of demonic possession were obvious but the link between the people being kidnapped was … well, quite frankly, there _wasn’t_ one. Except that there _had_ to be. There’s no way that any of this shit could just be a coincidence. Coincidences didn’t exist when it came to supernatural shit; at least, not in Dean’s experience. But he just couldn’t seem to make sense of it.

Dean scrubbed at his eyes as he stared at the screen of Sam’s laptop, glaringly bright in the dark motel room. A flash of lightning from outside made him blink several times to try to rid his eyes of the after-burn image of the web page he’d been looking at a moment ago. Ever since coming back from Purgatory, he’d started to feel his age which, for a hunter, was actually relatively over-the-hill. He really needed to get some sleep. Lightning flashed outside again and the downpour lashed even more heavily against the windows. Sighing, Dean made to move the computer off his lap, resigning himself to the fact that he needed to get at least a couple hours of shut-eye regardless of how frustrated he was by the dead end. The next burst of lightning made Dean double-take. He’d have sworn that something had appeared outside the motel window. Something that couldn’t possibly have been there.

Something … some _one_ that Dean had been _sure_ he’d seen by the side of the rode earlier. 

Every ounce of Dean’s self-control funneled into willing his legs to move him across the room without stumbling. His breath caught in his chest, banging against his ribs like there was a bird in there trying to escape. If his eyes had been tired before, they’d forgotten their fatigue in exchange for a laser-keen focus as Dean scanned the spaces between rain drops just outside the window where he’d been _certain_ he’d seen … he’d seen _Cas._

But … that was impossible ….

“Dean?” Sam’s voice, heavy with sleep, came to him from the bed behind him. “What’s going on? You all right?”

He couldn’t help but stare, dumbfounded, out the window.

“I dunno,” he mumbled after a moment. “I think … I just saw something.”

“Uh … you saw what?” Sam mumbled.

Dean’s lips worked soundlessly for a moment while he gathered himself to say the word out loud. “Cas.”

“Cas? Where?” 

Hauling his body out of bed, Sam padded over to where Dean stood still gazing out the window, searching for some sign that what he’d seen hadn’t been a mirage of his mind, twisted in grief. 

“Right there,” he said, nodding to the space just outside the window. And then, almost unwillingly, he admittedly, “A-a-and then earlier, on the road. I feel like I’m seeing him.”

Sam paused for thought and Dean knew that he was just trying to find a way to be kind about what he was going to say. “That’s … not possible. You said it yourself: you made it out, he didn’t right?”

Dean nodded, trying to keep his face stony. Dean made it out; Cas didn’t. He knew it was the truth, and yet, the last few hours were making him doubt everything he knew.

“I tried so damn hard to get us out of there.”

“I know you did,” Sam responded quickly. 

Not able to bring himself to look in his brother’s eyes and see sympathy and pity, Dean strode across the room, clenching his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see the empty space beyond the window. “You know, I could have pulled him out. I just don’t understand why he didn’t try harder.”

“Dean,” Sam said in his come-on-now-let’s-be-reasonable voice. “You did everything you could.”

“Yeah, then why do I feel like crap?”

Sam shrugged and heaved a small sigh. “Survivor’s guilt?”

Dean very nearly rolled his eyes. Their entire freakin’ lives were made of survivor’s guilt. 

“If you let it, this is going to keep messing with you; you’ve got to walk past it.”

Sam clapped a hand to his shoulder for a moment of solidarity – all Dean could really stand – before shuffling off towards the bathroom. Dean just nodded, balled his fists at his side, and tried not to let too much of his last moments of Purgatory spool before his eyes.

Walk past it. He had to just keep walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little jaunt, despite how long it took me to finish it and get it up here. I know that some of the facts have been disproven or changed since I wrote it (before season 9 happened), but I still feel really good about it as a whole. Hope you did too.

**Author's Note:**

> As I mentioned before, please visit my lovely artist, consultingsoufflegirl's web pages, as mentioned above, to show your appreciation for her amazing work and stay tuned for the next chapter!


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